MODULE: (SS02) – THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO GLOBALIZATION

:
A. Articulated different approaches and interpretation ofglobalization.
B. discussed the interconnecting definition of globalization;
C. examined the dimensions and history of globalizations;

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?
Globalization is a broad term
mostly people linked to economic aspect; the integration of
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 byglobalization. Moreover, it is mostly identified to
be powered by combination of economic, technological,
socio-cultural, political and biological aspects.

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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, orexpedite 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.

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?

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The use of social media for example, tcould create global connects between individuals. Another is
when a nation-state like our country thePhilippines joins or registers as member of international
organization like

United Nation or ASEAN. Meanwhile, Steger referred intensification asexpanding, stretching,

accelerating the presence of connection ornetwork a nation-state to another nation-states.Steger
(2009) also cited that globalization has four maindimensions: economic, political, cultural, and
ecological, withideological 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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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.

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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 global jihadism,
and globality is a “single socio-political space on a planetary scale.” It is a wide spread belief among
powerful people that 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?

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

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As one can 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 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.

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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.

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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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.
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 toreckon 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.
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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. 1