THE TASK OF DEFINING GLOBALIZATION
According to Bauman, globalization is a very important change, if not, the most
important (2003).
The reality and omnipresence of globalization makes us see ourselves as part of
what we refer to as the global age (Albrow, 1996).
cannot be contained within a specific time frame, all people, and all situations
(Al-Rhodan, 2006).
Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson (2001) saw globalization as the process of
world shrinkage, of distance getting shorter, things getting closer.
. The former president of Third World Network (TWN) in Malaysia, Martin Khor
regarded globalization as colonization.
Classification of globalization (definition):
1. Broad and Inclusive globalization means the onset of the borderless
world if one uses such, it can include a variety of issues that deal with
overcoming traditional boundaries.
2. Narrow and Exclusive can be limiting, in the sense that their application
adheres to only particular definitions.
3.
If so, why are we going to spent time studying this concept? How can we appreciate
these definitions? How can these help us understand globalization?
First, the perspective of the person who defines globalization shapes its definition.
Second, to paraphrase the sociologist Cesare Poppi: Globalization is the debate and
the debate is the globalization.
Third, globalization is reality. It is changing as human society develops.
Overall, globalization is a concept that is not easy to define because in reality,
globalization has a shifting nature. It is complex, multifaceted, and can be influenced by
the people who define it.
METAPHORS OF GLOBALIZATION
SOLID
Refers to barriers that prevent or make difficult the movement of things. Can be
natural or man-made.
LIQUID/LIQUIDITY
Refers to the increasing ease of movement of people, things, information, and
places in the contemporary world. Characteristics: (1) it change quickly and their
aspects, spatial, and temporal, are in continuous fluctuation, (2) their movement is
difficult to stop.
FLOWS
Are the movement of people, things, places, and information brought by the
growing porosity of global limitations. For example, foreign foods introduced by
foreign culture, global financial crisis, poor illegal migrants, and Filipino communities
abroad and Chinese communities in the Philippines.
WEEK 2
GLOBALIZATION THEORIES
Homogeneity refers to the increasing sameness in the world as cultural inputs,
economic factors, and political orientations of societies expand to create common
practices, same economics, and similar forms of government. It is often linked to
cultural imperialism. This means, a given culture influences other culture. For
example, the dominant religion in our country is Christianity, which was brought to us by
Spaniards. Another example is Americanization, which was defined by Kuisel (1993) as
the the import by non-Americans of product, images, technologies, practices, and
behavior that are closely associated with America/Americans.
Only one political orientation is growing in todays
McWorld
societies.
Undermines the existence of alternative global media
Media Imperialism
originating from developing countries.
Dominated by a small number of large corporations. Extended
Global Media
from old media to new media.
Process by which Western societies are dominated by the
McDonaldization
principle of fast food restaurant.
Heterogeneity pertains to the creation of various cultural practices, new
economies, and political groups because of the interaction of elements from different
societies in the world.
As global forces interact with local factors or a specific
Glocalization
geographic area, the glocal is being produced.
Refers to the political groups that are engaged in an
Jihad intensification of nationalism and that leads to greater political
heterogeneity throughout the world.
DYNAMICS OF LOCAL AND GLOBAL CULTURE
Cultural Differentialism emphasizes the fact that cultures are essentially
different and are only superficially affected by global flows. The interaction of cultures is
deemed to contain the potential for catastrophic collision.
Cultural Hybridization emphasizes the integration of local and global cultures.
Globalization is considered to be a creative process which gives rise to hybrid entities
that are not reducible to either the global or the local. A key concept is glocalization
or the interpenetration of the global and local resulting to unique cultural hybrids.
Cultural Convergence stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization.
Cultures are deemed to be radically altered by strong flows, while cultural imperialism
happens when one culture imposes itself on and tends to destroy at least parts of
another culture. The idea of deterritorialization” of John Tomlinson means that it is
much more difficult to tie culture to a specific geographic point of origin.
WEEK 3
THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION
Globalization has played a tremendous role in providing a context for the current
revival and the resurgence of religion. Today, most religions are not relegated to the
countries where they began. Religions have, in fact, spread and scattered on a global
scale. As Scholte (2005) made clear: Accelerated globalization of recent times has
enabled coreligionists across the planet to have greater direct contact with one another.
Global communications, global organizations, global finance, and the like have allowed
ideas of the Muslims and the universal Christian church to be given concrete shape as
never before.
Information, technologies, transportation means, and the media are deemed
important means on which religionists rely on dissemination of their religious
ideas. For instance, countless websites that provide information about
religions have been created.
Media also play an important role in the dissemination of religious ideas. In
this respect, a lot of television channels, radio stations, and print media are
founded solely for advocating religions.
Globalization has also allowed religion or faith to gain considerable
significance and importance as a non-territorial touchstone of identity. For
instance, Muslims aspire to establish the Islamic Ummah, a community of
believers.
Islam and Christianity are mostly incompatible with each other. These
religions cannot be hybridized or homogenized even if they often come in
contact.
It has been difficult for religion to cope with values that accompany
globalization like liberalism, consumerism, and rationalism.
Anti-rationalist qualities ascribed to religion can be the characteristics of
fundamentalist and extremist forms of religion. We cannot consider religion
as purely anti-rationalist since many religious people reconcile reason and
faith and make modern trends within their religions.
Globalization is also associated with Westernization and Americanization.
The dominance exerted by these two processes, particularly on the less
developed countries, makes religion-related cultures and identities take
defensive measures to protect themselves.
Extreme forms of resisting other cultural influence are done, such as that of
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
While religion takes caution against the norms and the values related to
globalization, it challenges the latter since religion is approved by Samuel
Huntingtons clash of civilizations, which maintains that such dehybridizing upshots
spring also from the religious partitioning and clashes.
GLOBALIZATION AND REGIONALIZATION
The process of globalization and regionalization reemerged during the 1980s and
heightened after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. At first, it seems that these two
processes are contradicting the very nature of globalization is by definition, global
while regionalization is naturally regional.
Regionalization undermines the potential benefits coming out from a
liberalized global economy. This is because regional organizations prefer regional
partners over the rest. Regional organizations respond to the states attempt to reduce
the perceived negative effects of globalization.
Regionalism a sort of counter-globalization.
Managed Globalization refers to all attempt to make globalization more
palatable to citizen.
As Held et al. (2005) claimed, the new regionalism is not a barrier to political
globalization but, on the contrary, entirely compatible with it if not an indirect
encouragement. Hurrel (2007) captured this debate in his one (global) world/many
(regional) worlds relationship. Regional developments in one part of the world have
affected and fueled regionalization everywhere else in a sort of contagion or domino
effect.
Globalization goes back to when humans first put a boat into the sea. We can
understand globalization as the increased flows of goods, services, capita, people,
and information across borders.
Region according to Mansfield and Milner (199) is a group of countries in the same
geographically specified area.
One of the reasons behind regionalism is the concern for security, which is to ensure
peace and stability. Confidence building can be enhanced through economic
cooperation within a region. The ASEAN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) are regional organizations that seek strong security in Asia through cooperation.
Week 4
ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF GLOBALIZATION
1. HARDWIRED
According to Nayan Chanda (2007), it
is because of our basic human need to
make our lives better that made
globalization possible. Therefore, one can trace the beginning of globalization
from our ancestors in Africa who walked out from the said continent in the late
Ice Age. Chanda (2007) mentioned that commerce, religion, politics, and
warfare are the urges of people toward a better life. These are respectively
connected to four aspects of globalization and they can be traced throughout
history: trade, missionary work, adventures, and conquest.
2. CYCLES
Globalization is a long-term cyclical process
and thus, finding its origin will be a daunting task.
What is important is the cycles that globalization
has gone through. Subscribing to this view will
suggest adherence to the idea that other global ages
have appeared. There is also the notion to suspect that this point
of globalization will soon disappear and reappear.
3. EPOCH
Also called waves and each has its own origin.
Six (6) Great Epochs
Globalization of religion (fourth to seventh
centuries)
European colonial conquests (late fifteenth
century)
Intra-European wars (late Eighteenth to
early nineteenth centuries)
Heyday of European imperialism (mid-
nineteenth century to 1918)
Post-World War II period
Post-Cold War period
4. EVENTS
Specific Events are also considered as part of the fourth view in explaining
the origin of globalization.
Gibbon (1998), argued that Roman
conquests centuries before Christ were its
origin.
In an issue of the magazine the
Economist (2006, January 12), it is
considered the rampage of the armies of
Genghis Khan into Eastern Europe in the
thirteenth century.
Rosenthal (2007) gave premium to
voyages of discovery Christopher
Columbuss discovery of America in
1942, Vasco da Gamma in Cape of Good
Hope in 1498, and Ferdinand Magellans
completed circumnavigation of the globe
in 1522.
5. BROADER, MORE RECENT CHANGES
A. The emergence of the United States as the global power (Post-
World War II)
US outrun Germany and Japan in terms of industry. Both Axis
powers and Allies fall behind economically and the US soon
began to progress in different aspects like in diplomacy, media,
film (Hollywood), and many more.
B. The emergence of Multinational Corporations (MNCs)
The United States, Germany, and Great Britain had in their
homeland great corporations which the world knows today. For
example, Ford and General Motors originated in the United
States but in the twentieth century, they exported more
automobiles and opened factories to other countries.
C. The demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War
Many global processes immigration, tourism, media,
diplomacy, and MNCS spread throughout the planet. This
paved way for the so-called free world.
