Main Characters of Globalization in the 21st Century

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Introduction.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “globalization” was first employed in a publication entitled Towards New Education in 1952, to denote a holistic view of human experience in education (Chitadze, 2011). An early description of globalization was penned by the founder of the Bible Student movement Charles Taze Russell who coined the term 'corporate giants' in 1897, although it was not until the 1960s that the term began to be widely used by economists and other social scientists. The term has since then achieved widespread use in the mainstream press by the second half of the 1980s. Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired numerous competing definitions and interpretations, with antecedents dating back to the great movements of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onwards.

The historical origins of globalization are the subject of ongoing debate. Though some scholars situate the origins of globalization in the modern era, others regard it as a phenomenon with a long history.

Thomas L. Friedman divides the history of globalization into three periods: Globalization 1 (1492-1800), Globalization 2 (1800–2000), and Globalization 3 (2000–present). He states that Globalization 1. involves the globalization of countries, Globalization 2. involved the globalization of companies, and Globalization 3. involves the globalization of individuals. Thomas Loren Friedman is an American journalist, columnist, and author. He writes a twice-weekly column for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East, and environmental issues, and has won the Pulitzer Prize three times (Chitadze, 2011).

Perhaps the most extreme proponent of a deep historical origin for globalization was Andre Gunder Frank, an economist associated with dependency theory. Frank argued that a form of globalization has been in existence since the rise of trade links between Sumer and the Indus Valley Civilization in the third millennium B.C. Critics of this idea contend that it rests upon an over-broad definition of globalization.

Globalization refers to the worldwide phenomenon of technological, economic, political, and cultural exchanges, brought about by modern communication, transportation, and legal infrastructure as well as the political choice to consciously open cross-border links in international trade and finance. It is a term used to describe how human beings are becoming more intertwined with each other around the world economically, politically, and culturally.

The International Monetary Fund defines globalization as “the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide.

Through increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, freer international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology”. Meanwhile, The International Forum on Globalization defines it as “the present worldwide drive toward a globalized economic system dominated by supranational corporate trade and banking institutions that are not accountable to democratic processes or national governments.” While notable critical theorists, such as Immanuel Wallerstein, emphasize that globalization cannot be understood separately from the historical development of the capitalist world-system the different definitions highlight the ensuing debate of the roles and relationships of government, corporations, and the individual in maximizing social welfare within the globalization paradigms. Nonetheless, globalization has economic, political, cultural, and technological aspects that may be closely intertwined. Given that these aspects are key to an individual's quality of life, the social benefits and costs brought upon them by globalization generate strong debate.

Figure 1.

Advantages of globalization for small businesses

Source: https://www.advergize.com/insights/advantages-of-globalization-for-small-businesses-things-you-need-to-know/

Key Terms in this Chapter

End of History: Francis Fukuyama`s thesis that the end-point in the ideological debate about the best form of government and economy had been reached, with liberal capitalism and democracy prevailing throughout the world without serious competition from advocates of either communism or autocracy.

Biodiversity: The variety of plant and animal species living in the Earth’s diverse ecosystems.

Information Age: The era in which the rapid creation and global transfer of information through mass communication contribute to the globalization of knowledge.

International Regime: Embodies the norms, principles, and rules. An institution around which global expectations unite regarding a specific international problem.

Transnational Religious Movement: A set of beliefs practices, and ideas administered politically by religious organizations to promote the worship of their conception of a transcendent deity and its principles for conduct.

Civil Society: A community that embraces shared norms and ethical standards to collectively manage problems without coercion and through peaceful and democratic procedures for decision-making aimed at improving human welfare.

Globally Integrated Enterprises: MNCs organized horizontally with management in production located in plants in numerous states for the same products they market.

International Monetary Fund: A financial agency now affiliated with the UN established in 1944 to promote international monetary cooperation, free trade exchange rate stability, and democratic rule by providing financial assistance and loans to countries facing financial crises.

New International Economic Order (NIEO): The 1974 policy resolution in the UN that called for a North-South dialogue to open the way for the less-developed countries of the Global South to participate more fully in the making of international economic policy.

Environmental Security: A concept recognizing that environmental threats to global life systems are as dangerous as the threats of armed conflicts.

World-System Theory: A body of theory that treats the capitalistic world economy originating in the sixteenth century as an interconnected unit of analysis encompassing the entire globe.

Interdependence: A situation in which the behavior of international actors greatly affects others with whom they have contact, making all parties mutually sensitive and vulnerable to the actions of the other.

Development: The processes, economic and political, through which a country develops to increase its capacity to meet its citizen’s basic human needs and raise their standard of living.

Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs): Institutions created and joined by state governments that give them authority to make collective decisions to manage particular problems on the global agenda.

Alliances: Coalitions that form when two or more states combine their military capabilities and promise to coordinate their policies to increase mutual security.

Globalization of Finance: The increasing trans nationalization of national international markets through the worldwide integration of capital flows.

Global Level of Analysis: Analysis that emphasizes the impact of worldwide conditions on foreign policy behavior and human welfare.

Complex Interdependence: A model of world politics based on the assumptions that states are not the only important actors, security is not the dominant national goal, and military force is not the only significant instrument of foreign policy. This theory stresses cross-cutting ways in which the growing ties among transnational actors make them vulnerable to each other’s actions and sensitive to each other’s needs.

Pacifism: The liberal idealist school of ethical thought that recognizes no conditions that justify the taking of another human’s life even when authorized by a head of state.

Modernization: A view of development popular in the Global North's liberal democracies that wealth is created through efficient production, free enterprise, and free trade and that countries relative wealth depends on technological innovation and education more than on natural endowments such as climate.

Good Offices: The provision by a third party to offer a place for negotiation among disputants but does not serve as a mediator in the actual negotiations.

Liberal International Economic Order (LIEO): The set of regimes created after World War II designed to promote monetary stability and reduce barriers to the free flow of trade and capital.

Functionalism: The theory advanced by David Mitrany and others explaining how people can come to value transnational institutions (IGOs integrated or merged states) and the steps to giving those institutions authority to provide the public goods (for example, security) previously, but inadequately, supplied by their state.

Collective Good: A public good, such as safe drinking water, from which everyone benefits.

Global South: A term now often used instead of the Third World to designate the less developed countries located primarily in the Southern Hemisphere.

Human Security: A measure popular in the liberal theory of the degree to which the welfare of individuals is protected and promoted in contrast to realist theory’s emphasis on putting the interests of the state in the military and national security ahead of all other goals.

Exchange Rates: The rate at which one state's currency is exchanged for another state's currency in the global marketplace.

Globalization of Production: Trans-nationalization of the productive process, in which finished goods rely on inputs from multiple countries outside of their final market.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT): An UN-affiliated IGO designed to promote international trade and tariff reductions, replaced by the World Trade Organization.

Collective Security: A security regime agreed to by the great powers that set rules for keeping the peace, guided by the principle that an act of aggression by any state will be met by a collective response from the rest.

Nondiscrimination: GATT principle that goods produced by all member states should receive equal treatment as embodied in the ideas of most-favored nations and national treatment.

Global East: The rapidly growing economies of East and South Asia that have made those countries competitors with the traditionally dominant countries of the Global North.

Greenhouse Effect: The phenomenon producing planetary warming when gases released by burning fossil fuels act as a blanket in the atmosphere thereby increasing temperatures.

European Union: A regional organization created by the merger of the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Atomic Energy Community, and the European Economic Community (called the European Community until 1993) that has since expanded geographically and in its authority.

Actor: An individual, group, state, or organization that plays a major role in world politics.

Global Migration Crisis: A severe problem stemming from the growing number of people moving from their home country to another country straining the ability of the host countries to absorb the foreign emigrants.

Global North: A term used to refer to the world`s wealthy, industrialized countries located primarily in the Northern hemisphere.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): A cross-border investment through which a person or corporation based in one country purchases or constructs an asset such as a factory or bank in another country so that a long–term relationship and control of an enterprise by nonresidents results.

International Monetary System: The financial procedures used to calculate the value of currencies and credits when capital is transferred across borders through trade, investment, foreign aid, and loans.

Asian Tigers: The four Asian NICs that experienced far greater rates of economic growth during the 1980s than the more advanced industrial societies of the Global North.

International Political Economy: The study of the intersection of politics and economics that illuminates why changes occur in the distribution of states' wealth and power.

Democratic Peace: the theory that although democratic states sometimes wage wars against nondemocratic states, they do not fight one another.

Global Commons: The physical and organic characteristics and resources of the entire planet- the air in the atmosphere in conditions on land and sea- on which is the common heritage of all humanity.

Clash of Civilizations: Political scientist Samuel Huntington’s controversial thesis that in the twenty-first century the globe’s major civilizations will conflict with one another, leading to anarchy and warfare similar to that resulting from conflicts between states over the past five hundred years.

Nongovernmental Organizations: Transnational organizations of private citizens maintaining consultative status with the UN. They include professional associations, foundations, multinational corporations, or simply internationally active groups in different states joined together to work toward common interests.

Floating Exchange Rates: An unmanaged process in which governments neither establish an official rate for their currencies nor intervene to affect the values of their currencies and instead allow market forces and private investors to influence the relative rate of exchange for currencies between countries.

Information technology (IT): The techniques for storing, retrieving, and disseminating through computerization of the internet recorded data and research knowledge.

Barter: The exchange of one good for another rather than the use of currency to buy and sell items.

Multinational Corporations (MNCs): Business enterprises headquartered in one state that invest and operate extensively in many other states,

Diplomacy: Communication and negotiation between global actors that is not dependent upon the use of force and seeks a cooperative solution.

Global System: The predominant patterns of behaviors and beliefs that prevail internationally to define the major worldwide conditions that heavily influence human and national activities.

Globalization: The integration of states through increasing contact, communication, and trade as well as increased global awareness of such integration.

Liberalism: A paradigm predicated on the hope that the application of reason and universal ethics international relations can lead to a more orderly, just and cooperative world. liberalism assumes that anarchy and war can be policed by institutional reforms that empower international organizations and law.

Globalization of Labor: Integration of labor markets, predicated by the global nature of production as well as the increased size and mobility of the global labor force.