Article Analysis

Article Analysis

Article Analysis

Introduction

Globalization is a period with multiple, contested meanings. Generically, it describes the ways in which nations, businesses and people are becoming more connected and interdependent across national borders through increased economic integration, communication, cultural diffusion and travel.

For purposes of the globalization KN hub, authors focused on globalization as “a process of greater integration within the world economy through movements of goods and services, capital, technology and (to a lesser extent) labour, which lead increasingly to economic decisions being influenced by global conditions” (8, p. 1) - in other words, to the emergence of a international marketplace.

Discussion

The definition of globalization adopted here also does not exclude the global transmission of ideas, including (for instance) the diffusion of certain human rights norms and political 'democratization.' However, the most conspicuous example of the global transmission of ideas with a demonstrable impact on SDH involves the promotion by key Western governments and multilateral institutions in which they play a dominant role of an intellectual blueprint … based on a belief about the virtues of markets and private ownership. Polanyi's historical research on development of markets at the national level demonstrated that markets are not 'natural,' but depend on the creation and maintenance of a complicated infrastructure of laws and institutions. The author quoted Polanyi's (1944) insight as even more salient at the international level: “It is a dangerous delusion to think of the global economy as some sort of 'natural' system with logic of its own: It is, and always has been, the outcome of a complex interplay of economic and political relations” (p. 3-4). Contemporary (roughly, post-1973) globalization has been promoted, facilitated and (sometimes) enforced by political choices about such matters as trade liberalization, financial (de)regulation, provision of support for domestically headquartered corporations, and the conditions under which development assistance is be provided. These choices have been made by national governments both individually and through multilateral institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and more recently the World Trade Organization. These institutions are created in the first instance by agreement among national governments, but the distribution of power within those institutions is highly unequal. Underscoring the interplay of politics, economics and ideas, these institutions and networks of academic and professional elites have also played an important role in the outward diffusion of ideas about policy design. The implementation of such ideas, in turn, requires legitimating by resource-bearing constituencies ...