Globalization Concepts Quiz

Course Title and Instructor

• Course Title: The Contemporary World
• Instructor: Atty. Mildred Marie Lacostales-Presbitero

What is Contemporary World?

• Refers to the circumstances and ideas of the present age, dealing with problems and issues related to environment, population, wealth, power, tensions, and conflicts.
• Describes the growing interdependence of the world's economies, cultures, and populations, driven by cross-border trade, technology, and investment flows.

Course Focus

• Examines globalization through various social science disciplines.
• Emphasizes global governance, development, and sustainability.
• Explores concepts and perspectives of globalization, including its structure, regions, ideas, food security, and sustainable development.

Introduction to Globalization

• Globalization remains a contested and slippery concept.
• Scholars approach globalization with diverse methodological approaches.
• Various analyses describe changing economic, political, and cultural processes since the 1970s.
• Definitions include increasing interconnectedness, the expansion of social relations across time and space, compression of time and space, and swift flows of capital, people, and ideas across borders.

Globalization as Globaloney

• Some scholars critique existing accounts of globalization as inaccurate, imprecise, or exaggerated.
• They argue that anything linked to transnational processes is evidence of globalization, making generalizations too broad.
• Arguments fall into three categories: rejectionism, skepticism, and modifiers.

Rejectionism Group

• Scholars dispute the usefulness of "globalization" as a precise concept.
• They argue its vagueness in academic discourse, often comparing it to similar vague terms like "nationalism."
• Propose refining analytical approaches or exploring alternative explanations for global transformations.

Skeptics Group

• Emphasize the limited nature of globalizing processes.
• Argue that the world is not as integrated as proponents suggest.
• Critically analyze economic globalization, arguing against the idea of a truly global economy focused in Europe, eastern Asia and North America..

Modifiers Group

• Dispute the novelty of globalization as a recent phenomenon.
• Acknowledge the existence of globalizing tendencies but claim that the label "globalization" is frequently applied imprecisely.
• Suggest a nuanced approach considering long-term historical contexts.

Purpose of Globalization Critics

• Insist on careful and precise usage of "globalization," refining participants' analytical skills.
• Serves as a reminder that some aspects of globalization might be older or not truly global or universal.

Definition of Globalization

• A complex phenomenon, not limited to a specific time frame, encompassing all people and situations.
• Emphasizes the interconnectedness of the world's economy, political systems, cultures, and social structures.
• Interpreted as a process of world shrinkage, of distance getting shorter, with increasing ease of interaction between people on opposite sides of the world.

The Task of Defining Globalization

• Globalization is a trans-planetary process involving increasing liquidity and the growing multidirectional flows of people, objects, places, and information.
• Includes the structures that either facilitate or hinder these flows (e.g., barriers, regulations).
• Can lead to integration AND fragmentation of global interactions.
• Global interactions are multifaceted, encompassing economic, political, or social dimensions.

Globalization: The Best Way to Define

• Emphasizes the expansion and intensification of social relations across world time and space.
• Conveys the creation of new and strengthening of existing social networks with connections across political, economic, geographic, and cultural boundaries.
• Highlights that globalization's effects are actively perceived by people, shaping their subjective understanding of time and space, rather than simply being objective, material events.

Instances of Globalization

• Social media, international organizations, global trading & markets, email, and instant communication
• Cable TV and the internet.

Evolution of Dating

• Shows how different forms of dating have evolved alongside globalization and its associated communication technologies.

Globalization vs. Globalism

• Globalization refers to the processes of global interaction while globalism is an ideology that asserts that global integration is beneficial for everyone, particularly for economic interests.

Scapes of Globalization

• Argues for multiple, simultaneous globalizations.
• Emphasizes different dimensions of integration: Ethnoscapes (people), Mediascapes (culture), Technoscapes (objects/mechanisms), Financesscapes (money), and Ideoscapes (political ideas).
• Acknowledging multiple globalizations helps create a more multifaceted view of globalization.

Metaphors of Globalization: Solidity

• Represents a barrier to movement.
• Can be natural or man-made (e.g., walls, borders, national policies)
• Illustrates previous periods in history wherein movement was limited.

Metaphors of Globalization: Liquidity

• Characterized by smooth flow and movement of people, things, information, and places.
• A reflection of contemporary globalization, where barriers are less significant.
• A comparison to liquid state of matter that flows and take shape of its containers. Includes concepts like speed, diffusion, and the interconnectedness of events across the globe.

Metaphors of Globalization: Flow

• Illustrates the interconnected movement of people, ideas, and information in contemporary globalization.
• Global flows are less controlled and often occur effortlessly, emphasizing the notion of increased interconnectivity.

Globalization Theories: Homogeneity & Heterogeneity

• Homogeneity: refers to increasing sameness in the world, driven by cultural, economic, and political forces. Often associated with “cultural imperialism”, where one culture dominates others.
• Heterogeneity: refers to the differences and hybrid cultural practices due to interactions between different elements within the world.

Homogeneity in Culture, Politics, and Economics

• Examines how homogenization takes place in matters of religion, socio-political system and economies during times of globalization.

Homogeneity in Media

• Analyses how media is largely produced & dominated by western & global institutions (rather than local/regional).
• Addresses notions of media imperialism, claiming global media trends affect audiences with a tendency towards homogeneity.
• Explores alternative global media from other countries (Al Jazeera, Bollywood) which challenge mainstream global media dominance.

Heterogeneity

• Cultural hybridization (cultural mixing), globalization involves blending of global and local forces creating unique outcomes in various geographical areas.
• The term refers to unique global interaction, cultures hybridization and glocalization.
• Involves the commodification of cultures.

Dynamics of Local and Global Cultures

• Three key perspectives:
  • Cultural differentialism: cultures remain distinct from each other, only being superficially affected by global interactions (Huntington).
  • Cultural hybridization: globalization is a process that interconnects local and global aspects (Glocalization) in various geographies.
  • Cultural convergence: processes of globalization lead to commonalities in cultures worldwide.

Globalization of Religion

• Globalization provides a context for the resurgence of religious identity globally.
• Globalization facilitated communication between people of similar faiths internationally.
• Globalization has also led to the development of global religious institutions, causing a global religious landscape.

Globalization Challenges

• Religion faces difficulties adapting to globalization values and promoting traditional beliefs that are considered anti-modern, secular, and scientism.

Origins and History of Globalization:

• Five perspectives:
  • Hardwired: inherent human need to make lives better.
  • Cycles: repeating patterns of global integration.
  • Epochs (Eras): historic periods of intensified globalization that include eras of religions, colonialism, wars, etc.
  • Events: specific events like major wars or discoveries.
  • Broader recent changes: identifying major events that happened in the second half of the 20th century that can be considered a turning point for globalization and its aspects.

Globalization - The World Economics (IMF)

• Overview of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its place in understanding economic globalization.
• Role in the integration of economies across borders via trade of goods, services, and capital.
• Features of growing world integration through movement of goods, services, and capital that are products of human interaction.

Globalization - The World Economics (Bretton Woods)

• Bretton Woods system focused on creating a more open trade system built on the principles of free trade.
• The importance of free trade to boost post-war economic recovery and boost world peace, prosperity, and cooperation between countries around the world.

Globalization- Keynesianism

• Explained the central tenet of Keynesian economics that government intervention is necessary for economic stability and growth during recessionary periods.
• Explains the implications of economic crises and fluctuations on the current global political and economic landscape.
• Describes why the Arab oil nations imposed their oil embargos in the 1970s and the impact of the oil crisis on the global economic landscape.

Globalization - Neoliberalism

• Describes an ideology and policy model emphasizing free market competition and limited government intervention in economic and social affairs.
• Also highlights the importance of free trade and mobility of international capital in promoting economic interdependence among countries worldwide.

Globalization – GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)

• Focuses on international trade agreements,
• Describes the efforts of international agreements that aim to reduce trade barriers through tariffs and rules.
• Outlines the development of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to monitor and enforce these rules.

Globalization - WTO (World Trade Organization)

• The WTO is the only international organization that handles the rules of trade operations between nations.
• Explains the functions of trade agreements, global principles, the importance of international cooperation, the objectives of the WTO, as well as its scope.

Globalization - Political Process

• Discusses globalization as a political process driven by factors like technology and globalization.
• Importance of computer technology and communication systems to the growth & creation of a single global market.
• Notes the decrease in the role of government influence and importance of nation-state-territorial units due to rising economic interdependence for long-term political and social changes.

Attributes of Today's Global System

• Four key attributes of contemporary global politics.
  • Interdependence of countries
  • Diplomacy among world countries
  • Role of international organizations like the United Nations (UN).
  • International actors in addition to state actors.

Origins of Contemporary State System

• A good starting point that unpacks the meaning of country and nation-states.
• Distinction between states and nations, not every nation is a state and vice versa.
• Analysis of the concept of the state and nations, including the need for a government and common ties.

Sovereignty

• The supreme and uncontrollable power of the state to exercise control within its own territory.
• Two kinds of sovereignty:
  • Legal Sovereignty refers to the authority that issues final commands.
  • Political Sovereignty refers to the sum total of all influencers that operate on legal sovereignty.

Nation

• A collective concept referring to a group of people connected by a common culture, language, or history, often with the desire to have an independent nation.

Treaty of Westphalia

• Describes the peace treaties signed in 1648 and how they shaped modern international relations.
• Includes the concept of co-existing sovereign states and establishes a system of international law where each state is equal.

Interstate System

• Characterized by unequal power.
• States interact through alliances and conflicts.
• Includes the global interstate system and its different forms of governance.

Internationalism

• A principle advocating for increased cooperation among nations (political, economic, and cultural)
• A belief that the promotion of global comity will better serve people worldwide.
• Different forms of internationalism, including liberal internationalism and socialist internationalism.

Liberal Internationalism

• An ideology in which free nations cooperate through international relations.
• Early proponents were the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant and Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini.
• Kant believed that states, similar to people within a territory, would desire a government, thus a need for global government.

Socialist Internationalism

• Emphasizes the importance of class over nation.
• Advocates for solidarity among workers and global cooperation to achieve equality.
• Early proponents were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
• They believed the state would exist as long as there is a division between social classes, hence their argument for a communist state where the ownership of production is under the control of the government.

Capitalism

• An economic system where private actors own and control resources.
• Driven by self-interest, competition, and market mechanisms.

Socialism

• An economic system which seeks to create a more equal distribution of resources and production to ensure a more equal distribution of resources in a society.

Capitalism Vs Socialism

• A comparison between the characteristics and advantages of Capitalism and Socialism, including the ownership of production and market systems

Test your understanding of key concepts in globalization as discussed by Arjun Appadurai. This quiz explores the various metaphors and critiques associated with globalization, helping you to differentiate between globalization and globalism. Answer questions about the significance of 'scapes' and examples of global connections.