MODULE: SS02: THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO GLOBALIZATION

OBALIZATION

Objectives:
At the end of this module, the learners must have:
 Articulated different approaches and interpretation of
globalization.
 discussed the interconnecting definition of globalization;
 examined the dimensions and history of globalizations;
 appreciated the dynamic experiences of globalization
Through times, people around the world have never been as
connected as today. Daily news or information are just on the tip of your
fingers as you switch on your radio, television or smart phones. Travel
and movement of the people to different places and across the world
becomes easier and faster fast. Variety of products from many points of
the world are available in all. goods and securies ower the world has
brough multinational companies and foreign investors to our shores.
Also to mention the trending Zombie movies, Korean Dramas, hair
styles, outfits and the likes have invaded the whole world of arts and
culture. All these experiences or phenomenon are brought by
technological advancement, economic movement and political
interconnectedness among nation-state which some authors called
“globalization.”
Anthony Giddens (2013) described globalization 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.”
This unit will present to you the various expressions of
globalization, its perspectives and theories dealing with experiences and
events that shaped globalization.

What is Globalization?
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Globalization is a broad term

mostly people linked to economic
aspect; the integration of national
economies into international
economy by trading, foreign
investment, flow of capital resources,
movement of people or migration, the
proliferation of technology and
presence of military. This
consequently pertains to the aspects
of our society manifested by
globalization. Moreover, it is mostly identified to be powered by
combination of economic, technological, socio-cultural, political and
biological aspects.
The term “globalization” can be tracked back to the early 1960s. In
the book of Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global
Culture (London: Sage, 1992) “globalization refers both to the
compression of the world and intensification of consciousness of the
world as a whole.” “Compression” meaning the world turns small in
which everything is not far to reach and accessed by everyone in the
world. Furthermore, it is a process that breaks the gap, boundary or
barriers between nation-state to create common consciousness.
“Intensification” means the extent and strength of consciousness or
practice not limited to a specific geographical place but is able to cross
the boarders of nation-states. Consider this example, the use of Nike
products, many people not only Filipinos are consumer of these
American products. Your favorite Guess products are sold in worldwide
markets and even in internet.
As espoused by Ritzer (2015), “globalization is a transplanetary
process or a set of processes involving increasing liquidity and growing
multidirectional flows of people, object, places, and information as well
as the structures they encounter and create that are barriers to, or
expedite those flows…” So how is it happening? Because of globalization
movement of people, products and ideas are increased in various
directions that reach consumers easily and quickly. On the other hand,
the emergence of hindrances limit and diminish the flow of people,
products and ideas.
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Globalization on the description

of Manfred Steger (2009) states that
“it is the expansion and
intensification of social relations and
consciousness across world-time and
across world-space.” When you say
“expansion” it relates to making oa
new connection of social network and
further multiplying it that expands
across political, economic, cultural and geographic borders. Meaning,
globalization creates a wider opportunity for social relations among
nation-states. But how can social relations or connections may happen?
The use of social media for example, tcould create global connects
between individuals. Another is when a nation-state like our country the
Philippines joins or registers as member of international organization like
United Nation or ASEAN. Meanwhile, Steger referred intensification as
expanding, stretching, accelerating the presence of connection or
network a nation-state to another nation-states.
Steger (2009) also cited that globalization has four main
dimensions: economic, political, cultural, and ecological, with
ideological aspects for each category.

1. Economic - Economic globalization is the intensification and

stretching of economic
interrelations around the globe. It
embraces such things as the
occurrence of a new global economic
order, the internationalization of
trade and finance, the dynamic
changing power of transnational
corporations, and the greater role of
international economic institutions.

2. Political - Political
globalization is the
intensification and expansion
of political interrelations
around the globe. It comprises
the modern-nation state
system and its changing place
in today’s world, the role of
global governance, and the
path of our global political
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systems.

3. Military - Military globalization, as

subdomain of political globalization,
is defined as the intensification and
stretching of military power across
the globe through numerous means of
military power (nuclear military
weapons, radiation weapons simply
weapons of mass destruction). This
form of globalization occurs across
offensive and defensive uses of power and survival in international
field. Beyond states, global organizations such as the United
Nations also extend military means globally through support
given by both Global North and South countries.

4. Cultural - Cultural
globalization is the
intensification and expansion of
cultural flows across the globe.
Culture is a very wide-ranging
concept and has various facets,
but in the argument on
globalization, Steger means it to
refer to “the symbolic
construction, articulation, and dissemination of meaning.” Topics
under this heading include discussion about the development of
a global culture, or lack thereof, the role of media in shaping our
identities and desires, and the globalization of languages.

5. Ecological - Topics of ecological

globalization include population
growth, access to food, worldwide
reduction in biodiversity, the gap
between rich and poor as well as
between the global North and global
South, human- induced climate
change, and global environmental
degradation.

Furthermore, Steger also posits that his definition of globalization

must we separated with an ideology he termed globalism. Globalization
refers to the process and direction of change over time, globalism refers
to a set of ideologies ranging from the worship of the free-market to
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global jihadism, and globality is a “single socio-political space on a

planetary scale.” It is a wide spread belief among powerful people that
the global interaction of economic market be beneficial for everyone
(Paul, 2013).

A Brief History of Globalization

The contemporary world is the era of a digital-driven period of

globalization. This era is called “ Globalization 4.0”. But, when did
globalization start? What were its major phases?

https://www.google.com/search?q=era+of+globalization&rlz

Silk roads (1st century BC-5th century AD, and 13th-14th

centuries AD)

As one could remember, people have been trading goods. But as

of the 1st century BC, a noteworthy phenomenon occurred. For the first
time in history, luxury products from China started to appear on the
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other edge of the Eurasian continent – in Rome. They got there after
being hauled for thousands of miles along the Silk Road. Trade had
stopped being a local or regional affair and started to become global.
Silk was mostly a luxury good, and so were the spices that were
added to the intercontinental trade between Asia and Europe. The Silk
Road could prosper in part because two great empires dominated much
of the route. If trade was interrupted, it was most often because of
blockades by local enemies of Rome or China. If the Silk Road eventually
closed, as it did after several centuries, the fall of the empires had
everything to do with it. And when it reopened in Marco Polo’s late
medieval time, it was because the rise of a new hegemonic empire: the
Mongols. It is a pattern we’ll see throughout the history of trade: it thrives
when nations protect it, it falls when they don’t.
Spice routes (7th-15th centuries)
The next chapter in trade happened with the Islamic merchants. As the
new religion spread in all directions from its Arabian heartland in the
7th century, so did trade. The founder of Islam, the prophet Mohammed,
was famously a merchant, as was his wife Khadija. Trade was thus in
the DNA of the new religion and its followers, and that showed. By the
early 9th century, Muslim traders already dominated Mediterranean and
Indian Ocean trade; afterwards, they could be found as far east as
Indonesia, which over time became a Muslim-majority country, and as
far west as Moorish Spain.

The main focus of Islamic trade in those Middle Ages were spices.
Chief among them were the cloves, nutmeg and mace from the fabled
Spice islands
– the Maluku islands in Indonesia. They were extremely expensive and
in high demand, also in Europe. Globalization still didn’t take off, but
the original Belt (sea route) and Road (Silk Road) of trade between East
and West did now exist.
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Age of Discovery (15th-18th centuries)

It was in this era, from the end of the 15th century onwards, that
European explorers connected East and West – and accidentally
discovered the Americas. Aided by the discoveries of the so-called
“Scientific Revolution” in the fields of astronomy, mechanics, physics
and shipping, the Portuguese, Spanish and later the Dutch and the
English first “discovered”, then subjugated, and finally integrated new
lands in their economies.
The most
(in)famous “discovery” is
that of America by
Columbus, which all but
ended pre-Colombian
civilizations. But the most
consequential exploration
was the circumnavigation
by Magellan: it opened
the door to the Spice
islands, cutting out Arab
and Italian middlemen. The European empires set up global supply
chains, but mostly with those colonies they owned. Moreover, their
colonial model was chiefly one of exploitation, including the shameful
legacy of the slave trade. The empires thus created both a mercantilist
and a colonial economy, but not a truly globalized one.
First wave of globalization (19th century-1914)

This started to change

with the first wave of
globalization, which roughly
occurred over the century
ending in 1914. By the end
of the 18th century, Great
Britain had started to
dominate the world both
geographically, through the
establishment of the British
Empire, and technologically,
with innovations like the steam engine, the industrial weaving machine
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and more. It was the era of the First Industrial Revolution.

The World Wars

In the years between the

world wars, the financial
markets, which were still
connected in a global web, caused
a further breakdown of the global
economy and its links. The Great
Depression in the US led to the
end of the boom in South
America, and a run on the banks
in many other parts of the world. Another world war followed in 1939-
1945. By the end of World War II, trade as a percentage of world GDP
had fallen to 5% – a level not seen in more than a hundred years.

Second and third wave of globalization

Under the leadership of a new hegemon, the United States of

America, and aided by the technologies of the Second Industrial
Revolution, like the car and the plane, global trade started to rise once
again. At first, this happened in two separate tracks, as the Iron Curtain
divided the world into two spheres of influence. But as of 1989, when the
Iron Curtain fell, globalization became a truly global phenomenon.
The newly created World Trade Organization (WTO) encouraged
nations all over the world to enter into free-trade agreements, and most
of them did, including many newly independent ones. In 2001, even
China, which for the better part of the 20th century had been a
secluded, agrarian economy, became a member of the WTO, and started
to manufacture for the world. In this “new” world, the US set the tone
and led the way, but many others benefited in their slipstream.
The new technology from the Third Industrial Revolution, the
internet, connected people all over the world in an even more direct way.
The internet also allowed for a further global integration of value chains.
In the 2000s, global exports reached a milestone, as they rose to
about a quarter of global GDP. Trade, the sum of imports and exports,
consequentially grew to about half of world GDP. In some countries, like
Singapore, Belgium, or others, trade is worth much more than 100% of
GDP.
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Globalization 4.0

In a world increasingly
dominated by two global
powers, the US and China, the
new frontier of globalization is
the cyber world. The digital
economy, in its infancy during
the third wave of globalization,
is now becoming a force to
reckon with through e-
commerce, digital services, 3D printing. It is further enabled by artificial
intelligence, but threatened by cross-border hacking and cyberattacks.
At the same time, a negative globalization is expanding too,
through the global effect of climate change. Pollution in one part of the
world leads to extreme weather events in another. And the cutting of
forests in the few “green lungs” the world has left, like the Amazon
rainforest, has a further devastating effect on not just the world’s
biodiversity, but its capacity to cope with hazardous greenhouse gas
emissions.

Summary

Globalization has been in our circulation a very long time ago. It

has affected the system of every nation’s society and thinking.
Globalization as defined by many is the intensification of worldwide
social relations that enable the global society to be connected, that every
event affects one another leading towards progress and development.
Then globalization as a process transform social relation and
transaction into a transcontinental or interregional flow of network
activity and exercise of power. However, many commentators view
globalization on the opposite side, like Martin Khor, President of the
Third World Network in Malaysia, who referred globalization as
colonization.

Video Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RieHPO4JeaU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0nFD19eT8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj5r2nZHB8
References:

Aldama, Prince Kennex. Chapter 2 of the book: "The

Contemporary World," pp. 12-13.
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