Module 1: Our Globalized World

In order to appreciate the difficulty of defining globalization, it is useful to reflect on how globalization is experienced. Let us consider the examples introduced earlier.

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The term globalization has been used in a variety of ways. It has been defined as a process of interconnectivity, where the world is argued to be shrinking in terms of time and space. It has been defined as a condition, where the world has reached some end state of full interconnectedness. It has been defined as a system, where institutions create rules and govern global economics and global politics. It has been defined as a force, something with agency, that is seeking to impose a particular form of interconnectedness, usually with a strong western bias. Again, all of these definitions capture a part of globalization, much like the blind men and the elephant. As Steger notes, together they point towards four characteristics of globalization.

First, they suggest globalization creates and multiplies existing networks which transcend economic, political, cultural, and geographic boundaries.

CNN is a good example of an existing network that has transcended geographic borders. While starting out as an American news network, it went global, and even became the basis of a theory describing how the 24-hour news cycle impacted foreign policy making: the CNN effect.  It has since been emulated by other networks like Al Jazeera.

Second, they suggest globalization expands and stretches social relations, activities, and connections. Examples of this expanding and stretching includes the global stock market, which is operating somewhere in the world at all times, the creation of intergovernmental organizations like the European Union (EU)and the United Nations (UN), as well as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Doctors Without Borders, and even multinational corporations (MNCs) such as Google.

Third, they suggest globalization accelerates and intensifies social exchanges and activities through advances in information communication technology. The internet and satellites allow almost real-time transmission of global events as well as powering sophisticated social media sites, like Facebook. One in six people in the world have a Facebook account!

Fourth, they suggest globalization is not only affecting the tangible, material world but also our sense of identity and place in the world. This does not erase our national identity, but rather it sets a global frame of a reference and allows for complementary identities to coexist. Examples of a global frame of reference include human rights or environmental protection. Examples of complementary identities, that blend the national with the international, include the LGBTQ and environmental movements. From this conversation, we can derive a working definition of globalization: the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and world-space. Or as Steger posits, globalization is about growing worldwide interconnectivity.

Figure 1-2:

If the short definition of globalization is growing interconnectivity, when did the process of globalization begin? This is another debate that has no simple solution. For some, globalization as a process began the first time someone set out from their village or tribe to see what else was out there. For others, the process of globalization was not meaningful until technology facilitated significant and sustained linkages between disparate parts of the world. For others still, contemporary globalization is quantitatively unique and they argue the process of ‘real’ globalization is relatively recent, having only taken off in the 1980s. There is a pretty solid argument from historians that nascent forms of globalizing processes can be traced back to the Silk Road, particularly at its peak between 500 and 800 CE. The Silk Road was constituted by a series of trade routes connecting the Korean Peninsula through to the Mediterranean Sea and is a good example of early globalization.

These trade routes had a degree of permanence. The Silk Road facilitated more than the movement of goods; it transformed the societies involved. It fostered urbanization in China; it brought languages and culture together. The Silk Road was a vehicle for the spread of religion. It introduced Buddhism to China and Japan and Islam to South Asia.

Figure 1-3:

Examining the ancient roots of globalization is interesting. However, there is utility in restricting our historical analysis to globalization’s more contemporary manifestation. The modern period of globalization can be dated from the late 19^th century to the 1980s which set the stage for contemporary globalization dating from 1989. From this perspective, the process of globalization is about how technology, politics, culture and economic drivers facilitated the growing interconnectivity of the world.

Technology is the back bone of globalization, facilitating the means of interconnectivity. In the late 19^th century, the advent of the steam engine facilitated the industrial revolution and the urbanization of Europe. It created new means of global transportation like the steam ship. These ships were able to navigate the engineering feats of the Suez and Panama canals.

Figure 1-4:

The telegraph lines that linked Europe, the US, Latin America, and Asia facilitated commercial activity and both imperial and colonial enterprises. From these technological advances came economic change and in particular a movement towards free trade, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes through imperialism. The Opium Wars are a good example of the latter, with the UK forcibly opening Chinese markets for foreign traders.

The scramble for Africa, where European colonialism grew from controlling 10% of Africa in 1881 to 90% in 1914, was rooted in a need for markets and resources as well as strategic rivalries. The subsequent domination of Africa is captured in the image of ‘The Rhodes Colossus’, with Cecil Rhodes pictured connecting Cairo and Cape Town by telegraph with the rifle slung over his shoulder.

This increased global expansion required political institutions to manage interaction, particularly at a functional level. This gave rise to nascent international institutions such as the Universal Postal Union in 1878, the protection of patents under the Paris Convention of 1883, and non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross in 1863.

Figure 1-7:

However the period between 1914 and 1944, most notable for two World Wars and the Great Depression, can hardly be seen as advancing the process of global interconnectivity. Rather, it has been argued that both the global conflict of the early 20^th century and the Great Depression were partly in response to globalization; that urbanization, colonial competition, and trade liberalization exacerbated national rivalries, leading to extreme nationalism, World War, and even genocide.

The period between 1944 and 1989 was ushered in by technology via the horrific demonstration of atomic power. The explosion of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in the death of 200,000 Japanese.

The scale of destruction, not just by the atomic bomb but also the entirety of the Second World War, mobilized efforts to regulate war as well as the global economy. This led to the creation of the United Nations, as well as the Bretton Woods System.

The UN would struggle to live up to the expectation of maintaining world peace, primarily due to the Cold War rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union. This rivalry would bring the world to the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis as well as supporting regional conflicts with proxy states. However, the Bretton Woods Agreement would create a period of sustained and stable economic growth in the western world between 1945 and 1971. The Bretton Woods Agreement established rules and sought stability for commercial and financial transactions between its signatories: the US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan. This growth was facilitated by advances in transportation technology, in particular container shipping, and the sharp rise in MNCs.

The world was also becoming more diversified in this period with the relatively rapid process of decolonization. In 1945 there were four independent African States: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa. There are now 54 independent states in Africa, including the world’s newest state South Sudan which gained independence in 2011. Sadly, it has been involved in a civil war since 2013 and is ranked as the world’s most fragile state.

However, when America ended the Gold Standard in 1971, the global system became less stable. Rising interest rates would put immense pressure on indebted developing states. In order to contain the ensuing debt crisis, institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank would work with powerful developed states like the US to apply neoliberal economic policies leading to further destabilization. This boom and bust cycle of global economics would correlate with growing and shrinking global interconnectivity.

The contemporary age of globalization also has a technological backbone: the microprocessor, the ubiquity of computers and cell phones, and the internet. These increasingly powerful and affordable pieces of technology should not be underestimated in the role they have played in fostering interconnectivity. However, it is a political event that marks the beginning of the current era of globalization: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. The ending the Cold War ushered an era of American unilateralism. The combination of technological advances with the apparent triumph of democracy and capitalism, lead to economic deregulation and attempts to integrate the world in one market. Between 1989 and 2016, trade increased from 3.05 trillion dollars worth of goods to 16.05 trillion dollars worth of goods and the trade in services rose from 731 billion dollars to 4.93 trillion dollars. Foreign Direct Investment has increased from 244 billion dollars to 1.57 trillion dollars in the same period. This financial interconnectedness was accompanied by political and cultural interconnectedness. There was arguably a homogenization happening in world culture and a weakening of state borders. However, much of this hid the coercive elements, such as the support for authoritarian regimes in resources sensitive states, and the appropriation of culture from the poor by the rich. These tensions came to the fore with the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in the US. The response to this attack would solidify state borders and restrict untrammeled interconnectivity. The Global Financial Crisis would do much the same in the economic arena, which brings us to today.

Our working definition of globalization is the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and world-space, or in short: globalization is about growing worldwide interconnectivity. Given this, how interconnected is our world? Measuring interconnectivity means deconstructing globalization into its constituent elements of economic, political, technological, and cultural dimensions. This is the goal in the next few modules. Perhaps a better question is: what impact does this interconnectivity have? This means looking at the benefits/costs of global interconnectivity as well as who receives the lion share of each. It is often the inequity of global interconnectivity that drives the contemporary issues will look at later in this course. Finally, after looking at the big picture of globalization, we need to ask ourselves if this is the only form of globalization possible. What alternatives are available? How can we better address issues of poverty, violence, inequity, justice, and sustainability? How can we as individuals and collectively as global citizens… imagine better.

Globalization has been used in so many ways that the utility of the term is contested. It has been defined as a process of interconnectivity, where the world is argued to be shrinking in terms of time and space. It has been defined as a condition, where the world has reached some end state of full interconnectedness. It has been defined as a system, where institutions create rules and govern global economics and global politics. It has been defined as a force, something with agency, that is seeking to impose a particular form of interconnectedness, usually with a strong western bias.

 Globalization accelerates and intensifies social exchanges and activities through advances in information communication technology. The internet and satellites allow almost real-time transmission of global events as well as powering sophisticated social media sites, like Facebook

A global frame of reference is the expansion of one’s world view to include the entire planet, to think on a planetary scale. It is a necessary step to address issues of global climate change, global terrorism, or global inequity. These are issues that do not respect sovereign political borders.

The Silk Road was composed of trade routes and had a degree of permanence. However, it facilitated more than just the movement of goods; it transformed the societies involved. It fostered urbanization in China. It brought languages and culture together. The Silk Road introduced Buddhism to China and Japan and Islam to South Asia.

The steam engine drove industrialization and urbanization in Europe. It allowed new forms of transportation such as steam ships and locomotives which drove trade, imperialism, and colonialism. Engineering in the Suez and Panama canals connected the seaways for these ships to travel on. The telegraph facilitated communication and drove market growth.