The Future of the European Union in the Framework of Globalization

Globalization

Globalization refers to all those processes by which the people of the world are incorporated into a single world society, global society (Albrow, 1990).

Giddens (1990) defines 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.” Robertson’s definition includes both the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole and focuses on globalization as a “massive, two-fold process involving the interpenetration of the universalization of particularism and the particularization of universalism” (Robertson, 1992).

Globalization can also be defined as the increased flows of goods, services, capital, people and information across borders (Jacoby &Meunier, 2010). These issues are highly parallel to the European Union’s establishment purposes.

Globalization constitutes a multiplicity of linkages and interconnections that transcend the nation states and the societies which make up the modern World system. It defines a process through which events, decisions and activities in one part of the World can come to have a significant consequence for individuals and communities in quite distant parts of the globe (McGrew, 1990).