Globalization

Globalization



Globalization

Introduction

Few current topics are more contested than globalization—its definition, causes, and economic, political, social, and moral implications. Some critics maintain that globalization is a faddish term that encompasses too many ideas to be coherent. Yet it is hard to deny that some kinds of global interaction are taking place that are significantly reshaping life for many human beings. Debates swirl around how globalization can be most efficiently and equitably steered or constrained, if indeed it can be guided in some way. At whatever level (local, national, and international), leaders in various sectors face effects of globalization.

Globalization is better understood as a set of processes—sometimes competing; sometimes complementary—than as a unified process. It refers to economic, political, technological, social, cultural, and ethical developments. The term is most often employed in relation to developments after 1980, even though many scholars now assert that earlier periods of history also contained elements of globalization. In general, globalization refers to the incorporation of the global level into activities or frames of reference that would otherwise remain local, national, or regional in scope. (Yergin, 1998)

Economic Aspects

Although globalization can and does entail a variety of dimensions, the term commonly refers to economic links and processes. Economic globalization concerns the expansion of production, trade, consumption, savings, and investment to markets beyond national and regional ones. Although trade has always crossed national boundaries, from spice routes to the East, to trade in the Roman Empire, to international shipping between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the level of international trade has skyrocketed since about 1980.

With strong encouragement from leaders in private enterprise, political leaders have pushed for the reduction in tariffs on the trade of goods and service across national lines. The Uruguay round of trade talks (1986-1994) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, established in 1947), created the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO, which began officially in 1995, is an international institution consented to by various partner countries. It has the power to enforce agreed-upon treaties and to mediate trading disagreements among member countries. Critics maintain that the WTO governance is not democratic and privileges an ideology of the free market over social values. In this view, economic globalization that promotes free trade and growth of production comes at the expense of weaker economies and nations (who consent to membership out of a very limited set of options), the rights and protections of laborers, and environmental health. (The World Bank, 2002)

Technological Changes

Late-twentieth-century technological innovations are a major component of globalization. A series of developments in the telecommunications and computer industries has made immediate, coordinated, and sustained communication possible among multiple geographic locations in the world. The cost of a one-minute phone call from New York to London has dropped precipitously, by about 99 percent, over the past seven decades (United Nations Development Programme 1999, 30). Cell phone technology promises to make communication to remote areas affordable; entire nations appear poised to skip a generation of wired technology and adopt wireless communication ...