GLOBALIZATION THEORIES

Globalization refers to their interconnectedness of different parts of the

world,resulting in the increased flow of goods,services,people,information
and culture across national borders. This process has been driven by
technological advancements,economic liberalization and political
cooperation.Its impact is profound,influencing economies,cultures and the
environment.These section will give you a glimpse of the important theories
on globalizaton.

Homogeneity
- Refers to the increasing sameness in the world as cultural inputs, economic
factors, and political orientation of societies expand to create common
practices, same economies, and similar forms of government.
- Homogeneity in culture is often linked to cultural imperialism.
- Cultural imperialism means, a given culture influences other cultures.
- For example, the dominant religion in our country is Christianity, which was
brought to us by the Spaniards.
- Another example is Americanization, which means the import of products,
images, technologies, practices, and behavior that are closely associated
with America/Americans.

Media Imperialism
- characterized by the global flow of media
- TV, music, books, and movies are perceived as imposed on developing
countries by the West.
- Media imperialism undermines the existence of alternative global media
originating from developing countries, such as the Al Jazeera, Bollywood, as
well as the influence of the local and regional media.
- the internet can be seen as an arena for alternative media.

McDonaldization
- it is the process by which Western societies are dominated by the principles
of fast food restaurants.
- involves the global spread of rational systems, such as efficiency,
calculability, predictability, and control.
- this process is “extended to other businesses, sectors and geographic
areas”
- Globalization, in contrast to glocalization, is a process wherein nations,
corporations, etc. impose themselves on geographic areas in order to gain
profits, power, and so on.

Heterogeneity
- pertains to the creation of various cultural practices, new economies, and
political group because of the interaction of elements from different societies
in the world.
- Heterogeneity refers to the differences because of either lasting differences
or of the hybrids or combinations of cultures that can be produced through the
different transplanetary processes.
- Contrary to cultural imperialism, heterogeneity in culture is associated with
cultural hybridization.
- A more specific concept is “glocalization” coined by Roland Robertson in
1992
- Glocalization is the interaction of global forces with local factors on a specific
geographic area.
 Theories of Globalization

Theory of Liberalism

Liberalism sees the process of globalization as market-led extension of

modernization. At the most elementary level, it is a result of ‘natural’ human
desires for economic welfare and political liberty. As such, transplanetary
connectivity is derived from human drives to maximize material well-being and
to exercise basic freedoms. These forces eventually interlink humanity across
the planet.They fructify in the form of: (a) Technological advances, particularly
in the areas of transport, communications and information processing, and,
(b) Suitable legal and institutional arrangement to enable markets and liberal
democracy to spread on a trans-world scale.Such explanations come mostly
from Business Studies, Economics,International Political Economy, Law and
Politics. Liberalists stress the necessity of constructing institutional
infrastructure to support globalization. All this has led to technical
standardization, administrative harmonization, translation arrangement
between languages, laws of contract, and guarantees of property rights.But its
supporters neglect the social forces that lie behind the creation of
technological and institutional underpinnings. It is not satisfying to attribute
these developments to ‘natural’ human drives for economic growth and
political liberty. They are culture blind and tend to overlook historically situated
life-worlds and knowledge structures which have promoted their emergence.
All people cannot be assumed to be equally amenable to and desirous of
increased globality in their lives. Similarly, they overlook the phenomenon of
power. There are structural power inequalities in promoting globalization and
shaping its course. Often they do not care for the entrenched power
hierarchies between states, classes, cultures, sexes, races and resources.

Theory of Political Realism

Advocates of this theory are interested in questions of state power, the

pursuit of national interest, and conflict between states. According to them
states are inherently acquisitive and self-serving, and heading for inevitable
competitionof power. Some of the scholars stand for a balance of power,
where any attempt by one state to achieve world dominance is countered by
collective resistance from other states.Another group suggests that a
dominant state can bring stability to world order. The ‘hegemon’ state
(presently the US or G7/8) maintains and defines international rules and
institutions that both advance its own interests and at the same time contain
conflicts between other states. Globalization has also been explained as a
strategy in the contest for power between several major states in
contemporary world politics. They concentrate on the activities of Great
Britain, China, France, Japan, the USA and some other large states. Thus, the
political realists highlight the issues of power and power struggles and the role
of states in generating global relations. At some levels, globalization is
considered as antithetical to territorial states. States, they say, are not equal in
globalization, some being dominant and otherssubordinate in the process. But
they fail to understand that everything in globalization does not come down to
the acquisition, distribution and exercise of power. Power theorists also
neglect the importance and role of other actors in generating globalization.
These are sub-state authorities, macro-regional institutions, global agencies
and private-sector bodies.

Additional types of power-relations on lines of class, culture and gender

also affect the course of globalization. Some other structural inequalities
cannot be adequately explained as an outcome of interstate competition. After
all, class inequality, cultural hierarchy, and patriarchy predate the modern
states.

Theory of Marxism

Marxism is principally concerned with modes of production, social

exploitation through unjust distribution, and social emancipation through the
transcendence of capitalism. Marx himself anticipated the growth of globality
that ‘capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier to conquer the
whole earth for its market’. Accordingly, to Marxists, globalization happens
because tran-sworld connectivity enhances opportunities of profitmaking and
surplus accumulation. Marxists reject both liberalist and political realist
explanations of globalization. It is the outcome of historically specific impulses
of capitalist development. Its legal and institutional infrastructures serve the
logic of surplus accumulation of a global scale. Liberal talk of freedom and
democracy make up a legitimating ideology for exploitative global capitalist
class relations.The neo-Marxists in dependency and world-system theories
examine capitalist accumulation on a global scale on lines of core and
peripheral countries. Neo-Gramscians highlight the significance of underclass
struggles to resist globalizing capitalism not only by traditional labor unions,
but also by new social movements of consumer advocates, environmentalists,
peace activists,peasants, and women. However, Marxists give an overly
restricted account of power. There are other relations of dominance and
subordination which relate to state, culture, gender, race, sex, and more.

Presence of US hegemony, the Westcentric cultural domination,

masculinism, racism etc. are not reducible to class dynamics within
capitalism. Class is a key axis of power in globalization, but it is
not the only one. It is too simplistic to see globalization solely as a result of
drives for surplus accumulation. It also seeks to explore identities and
investigate meanings. People develop global weapons and pursue global
military campaigns not only for capitalist ends, but also due to interstate
competition and militarist culture that predate emergence of capitalism
aspects of social relations also are not outcome of the modes of production.
They have, like nationalism, their autonomy.
Theory of Constructivism

Globalization has also arisen because of the way that people have
mentally constructed the social world with particular symbols, language,
images and interpretation. It is the result of particular forms and dynamics of
consciousness. Patterns of production and governance are second-order
structures that derive from deeper cultural and socio-psychological forces.
Such accounts of globalization have come from the fields of Anthropology,
Humanities, Media of Studies and Sociology. Constructivists concentrate on
the ways that social actors ‘construct’ their world: both within their own minds
and through inter-subjective communication with others. Conversation and
symbolic exchanges lead people to construct ideas of the world, the rules for
social interaction, and ways of being and belonging in that world. Social
geography is a mental experience as well as a physical fact. They form ‘in’ or
‘out’ as well as ‘us’ and they’ groups. They conceive of themselves as
inhabitants of a particular global world.

National, class, religious and other identities respond in part to material

conditions but they also depend on inter-subjective construction and
communication of shared self-understanding. However, when they go too far,
they present a case of social-psychological reductionism ignoring the
significance of economic and ecological forces in shaping mental experience.
This theory neglects issues of structural inequalities and power hierarchies in
social relations. It has a built-in a political tendency.

Theory of Postmodernism

Some other ideational perspectives of globalization highlight the

significance of structural power in the construction of identities, norms and
knowledge. They all are grouped under the label of ‘postmodernism’. They
too,
as Michel Foucault does strive to understand society in terms of knowledge
power: power structures shape knowledge. Certain knowledge structures
support certain power hierarchies.The reigning structures of understanding
determine what can and cannot be known in a given socio-historical context.
This dominant structure of knowledge in modern society is ‘rationalism’. It puts
emphasis on the empirical world, the subordination of nature to human
control, objectivist science, and instrumentalist efficiency. Modern rationalism
produces a society overwhelmed with economic growth, technological control,
bureaucratic organization, and disciplining desires.This mode of knowledge
has authoritarian and expansionary logic thatleads to a kind of cultural
imperialism subordinating all other epistemologies. It does not focus on the
problem of globalization per se. In this way, western rationalism overawes
indigenous cultures and other non-modem life-worlds.Postmodernism, like
Marxism, helps to go beyond the relatively superficial accounts of liberalist
and political realist theories and expose social conditions that have favored
globalization. Obviously, postmodernism suffers from its ownmethodological
idealism. All material forces, though come under impact of ideas, cannot be
reduced to modes of consciousness. For a valid explanation, interconnection
between ideational and material forces is not enough.

Theory of Feminism

It puts emphasis on social construction of masculinity and femininity. All

other theories have identified the dynamics behind the rise of trans-planetary
and supra-territorial connectivity in technology, state, capital, identity and the
like. Biological sex is held to mold the overall social order and shape
significantly the course of history, presently globality. Their main concern lies
behind the status of women, particularly their structural subordination to men.
Women have tended to be marginalized, silenced and violated in global
communication.

Theory of Trans-formationalism

This theory has been expounded by David Held and his colleagues.
Accordingly, the term ‘globalization’ reflects increased interconnectedness in
political, economic and cultural matters across the world creating a “shared
social space”. Given this interconnectedness, globalization may be defined as
“a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the
spatial organization of social relations and transactions, expressed in trans-
continental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and
power.” While there are many definitions of globalization, such a definition
seeks to bring together the many and seemingly contradictory theories of
globalization into a “rigorous analytical framework” and “proffer a coherent
historical narrative”. Held and McGrew’s analytical framework is constructed
by developing a three-part typology of theories of globalization consisting of
“hyperglobalist,” “sceptic,” and “transformationalist” categories.

The Hyperglobalists purportedly argue that “contemporary globalization

defines a new era in which people everywhere are increasingly subject to the
disciplines of the global marketplace”. Given the importance of the global
marketplace, multi-national enterprises (MNEs) and intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs) which regulate their activity are key political actors.
Sceptics, such as Hirst and Thompson (1996) ostensibly argue that
“globalization is a myth which conceals the reality of an international economy
increasingly segmented into three major regional blocs in which national
governments remain very powerful.” Finally, transformationlists such as
Rosenau (1997) or Giddens (1990) argue that globalization occurs as “states
and societies across the globe are experiencing a process of profound
change as they try to adapt to a more interconnected but highly uncertain
world” Developing the transformationalist category of globalization theories.
Held and McGrew present a rather complicated typology of globalization
based on globalization’s spread, depth, speed, and impact, as well as its
impacts on infrastructure, institutions, hierarchical structures and the
unevenness of development.They imply that the “politics of globalization”
have been “transformed” (using their word from the definition of globalization)
along all of these dimensions because of the emergence of a new system of
“political globalization.” They define “political globalization” as the “shifting
reach of political power, authority and forms of rule” based on new
organizational interests which are “transnational” and “multi-layered.”
These organizational interests combine actors identified under the
hyperglobalist category (namely IGOs and MNEs) with those of the sceptics
(trading blocs and powerful states) into a new system where each of these
actors exercises their political power, authority and forms of rule. Thus, the
“politics of globalization” is equivalent to “political globalization” for Held and
McGrew. However, Biyane Michael criticizes them. He deconstructs their
argument, if a is defined as “globalization” (as defined above), b as the
organizational interests such as MNEs, IGOs, trading blocs, and powerful
states,and c as “political globalization” (also as defined above), then their
argumentreduces to a. b. c. In this way, their discussion of globalization is
trivial. Held and others present a definition of globalization, and then simply
restates various elements of the definition. Their definition, “globalization can
be conceived as a process (or set of processes) which embodies a
transformation in the spatial organization of social relations” allows every
change to be an impact of globalization. Thus, by their own definition, all the
theorists they critique would be considered as “transformationlists.” Held and
McGrew also fail to show how globalization affects organizational interests.

Theory of Eclecticism

Each one of the above six ideal-type of social theories of globalization

highlights certain forces that contribute to its growth. They put emphasis on
technology and institution building, national interest and interstate
competition,
capital accumulation and class struggle, identity and knowledge construction,
rationalism and cultural imperialism, and masculinize and subordination of
women. Jan Art Scholte synthesizes them as forces of production,
governance,identity, and knowledge.Accordingly, capitalists attempt to amass
ever-greater resources in excess of their survival needs: accumulation of
surplus. The capitalist economy is thoroughly monetized. Money facilitates
accumulation. It offers abundant opportunities to transfer surplus, especially
from the weak to the powerful. This mode of production involves perpetual
and pervasive contests over the distribution of surplus. Such competition
occurs both between individual, firms, etc. and along structural lines of class,
gender, race etc. Their contests can be overt or latent. Surplus accumulation
has had transpired in one way or another for many centuries, but capitalism is
a comparatively recent phenomenon. It has turned into a structural power, and
is accepted as a ‘natural’ circumstance, with no alternative mode of
production.
It has spurred globalization in four ways: market expansion, accounting
practices asset mobility and enlarged arenas of commodification. Its
technological innovation appears in communication, transport and data
processing as well as in global organization and management. It concentrates
profits at points of low taxation. Information, communication, finance and
consumer sectors offer vast potentials to capital making it ‘hyper-capitalism’.
Any mode of production cannot operate in the absence of an enabling
regulatory apparatus. There are some kind of governance mechanisms.
Governance relates processes whereby people formulate, implement, enforce
and review rules to guide their common affairs.” It entails more than
government.

It can extend beyond state and sub-state institutions including supra-state

regimes as well. It covers the full scope of societal regulation.
In the growth of contemporary globalization, besides political and
economic forces, there are material and ideational elements. In expanding
social relations, people explore their class, their gender, their nationality, their
race, their religious faith and other aspects of their being. Constructions of
identity providecollective solidarity against oppression. Identity provides
frameworks for community, democracy, citizenship and resistance. It also
leads from nationalism to greater pluralism and hybridity. Earlier nationalism
promoted territorialism, capitalism, and statism, now these plural identities are
feeding more and more globalist, hyper-capitalism and polycentrism. These
identities have many international qualities visualized in global diasporas and
other group affiliations based on age, class, gender, race, religious faith and
sexual orientations. Many forms of supra-territorial solidarities are appearing
through globalization.

Source: https://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/8-theories-of-
globalization-explained/642