Theories of Globalization PDF

Theories of Globalization Why did globalization studies emerge? 1. The emergence of a globalized 4. The unprecedented economy involving new systems of multidirectional movement of production, finance, and peoples around the world consumption and worldwide...

Theories of Globalization Why did globalization studies emerge? 1. The emergence of a globalized 4. The unprecedented economy involving new systems of multidirectional movement of production, finance, and peoples around the world consumption and worldwide involving new patterns of economic integration. transnational migration, identities 2. New transnational or global and communities. cultural patterns, practices, and flows, and the idea of ‘global 5. New social hierarchies, forms cultures. of inequality, and relations of 3. Global political processes, the rise domination around the world and of new transnational institutions, in the global system as a whole. and concomitantly, the spread of global governance and authority 2 Scholars studied the impact of globalization Recent research agendas The effects of globalization are ubiquitous. have branched out into an enormous variety of topics, from transnational sexualities to global tourism, changes in the state, the restructuring of work, transnational caregiving, globalization and crime, the global media, and so on. 3 Broad Categories of Research in Globalization those studying specific those studying the problems or issues as concept of they relate to globalization itself – globalization; theorizing the very nature of the process 4 Observations on Globalization The pace of social change Social change is related to and transformation worldwide increased connectivity seems to have quickened among peoples and dramatically in the latter countries worldwide, an decades of the twentieth objective dimension, century which has implication together with an increased in the social life and human awareness worldwide of culture. these interconnections, a subjective dimension. 5 When did globalization begin Proposition 1. It is a process Proposition 3. It is a recent that has been going on since phenomenon associated the dawn of history, hence a with such processes of 5,000–10,000 year time post-industrialization, frame. postmodernization, or the restructuring of capitalism, Proposition 2. It is a process hence a 20–30 year frame. coterminous with the spread and development of capitalism and modernity, 6 Theories of Globalizati on 7 World system theory - proponent is Immanuel Wallerstein - views globalization not as a recent phenomenon but as virtually synonymous with the birth and spread of world capitalism, c. 1500. 8  World system theory - The capitalist world-economy that emerged c. 1500 in Europe and expanded outward over the next several centuries, absorbing in the process all existing mini-systems and world-empires, establishing market and production networks that eventually brought all peoples around the world into its logic and into a single worldwide structure. - Hence, by the late nineteenth century there was but one historical system that had come to encompass the entire planet, the 9 capitalist world-system, a truly ‘global  World system theory - A key structure of the capitalist world-system is the division of the world into three great regions, or geographically based and hierarchically organized tiers. 10  World system theory - The first is the core, or the powerful and developed centers of the system, originally comprised of Western Europe and later expanded to include North America and Japan. - The second is the periphery, those regions that have been forcibly subordinated to the core through colonialism or other means, and in the formative years of the capitalist world, the system would include Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. - Third is the semi-periphery, comprised of those states and regions that were previously in the core and are moving down in this hierarchy, or those that were previously in the periphery and are moving up. 11 Theories of Global Capitalism See globalization as a novel stage in the evolving system of world capitalism TNPs or transnational practices emerged in globalization. TNPs originate with non-state actors 12 Theories of Global Capitalism Three levels of TNPs the economic, whose agent is transnational capital; the political, whose agent is a transnational capitalist class (TCC); and the cultural-ideological, whose agent is cultural elites. 13 Theories of Global Capitalism TCC or transnational capitalist class brings together several social groups who see their own interests in an expanding global capitalist system: the executives of transnational corporations; ‘globalizing bureaucrats, politicians, and professionals’, and ‘consumerist elites’ in the media and the commercial sector (Sklair 2000). 14 Theories of Global Capitalism Robinson (2003, 2004) has advanced a related theory of global capitalism involving three planks: transnational production, transnational capitalists and a transnational state. 15 Theories of Global Capitalism Epochal shift has taken place with the transition from a world economy to a global economy 16 Theories of Global Capitalism Robinson theorizes an emergent transnational state (TNS) apparatus. TNS is a loose network comprised of supranational political and economic institutions together with national state apparatuses that have been penetrated and transformed by transnational forces 17 The Network Society ╸ One of the proponents is Manuel Castell ╸ He claimed that it is not the logic of capitalist development but that of technological change that is seen to exercise underlying causal determination in the myriad of processes referred to as globalization. Castells’ approach has been closely associated with the notion of 18 The Network Society ╸ Globalization represents a new age of information ╸ two analytically separate processes came together in the latter decades of the twentieth century to result in the rise of the network society. 19 The Network Society One was the development of new information technology (IT), in particular, computers and the Internet, representing a new technological paradigm and leading to a new ‘mode of development’ that Castells terms ‘informationalism’. The other was capitalist retooling using the power of this technology and ushering in a new system of ‘information capitalism’, what Castells and others have alternatively referred to as the ‘new economy’ 20 The Network Society This new economy is: informational, knowledge-based; global, in that production is organized on a global scale; and networked, in that productivity is generated through global networks of interaction 21 Theories of Space, Place, and Globalization global economy - is an ‘economy with the capacity to work as a unit in real time, or to choose time, on a planetary scale’, and involving global financial markets, the globalization of trade, the spread of international production networks, and the selective globalization of science and technology 22 Theories of Space, Place, and Globalization Time-space distanciation - ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events 23 Theories of Space, Place, and Globalization Time-space compression - is the process whereby time is reorganized in such a way as to reduce the constraints of space, and vice-versa (David Harvey, 1990) 24 Theories of Space, Place, and Globalization Glocalization - ideas about home, locality and community have been extensively spread around the world in recent years, so that the local has been globalized, and the stress upon the significance of the local or the communal can be viewed as one ingredient of the overall globalization process (Robertson 1995) 25 Modernity, Postmodernity and Globalizations - globalization represents the universalization of modernity (Robertson, 1992) - globalization is the outcome of the completion of modernization – Giddens considers it as the late modernity 26 Modernity, Postmodernity and Globalizations Globalization involves the: universalization of the nation-state as the political form, the universalization of the capitalist system of commodity production, a Foucaultian surveillance by the modern state, and the centralization of control of the means of violence within an industrialized military order (Giddens) 27 Modernity, Postmodernity and Globalizations On the basis of the nation-state as the universal political form organized along the four axes of capitalism, industrialism, surveillance and military power. The Consequences of Modernity by Giddens 28 Modernity, Postmodernity and Globalizations Globalization is seen as the spread and ultimate universalization of sets of modern values, practices and institutions through ‘isomorphic’ processes that operate on a global scale. The growth of supranational institutional networks and of universal modern norms of organization bring about what they refer to as ‘world society’ (Boli and Thomas, 1999; Meyer et al. 1997). 29 Modernity, Postmodernity and Globalizations Albrow, in contrast, the transition from modern to postmodern society is the defining feature of globalization. A new ‘global age’ has come to supersede the age of modernity (Albrow 1997). Albrow argues that globalization signals the end of the ‘modern age’ and the dawn of a new historic epoch, the ‘global age’. 30 Theories of Transnationality and Transnationalism Transnationality - refers to the rise of new communities and the formation of new social identities and relations that cannot be defined through the traditional reference point of nation-states 31 Theories of Transnationality and Transnationalism Transnationalism - encompassing a wide variety of transformative processes, practices and developments that take place simultaneously at a local and global level. - refer to the activities of immigrants to forge and sustain multistranded social relations that link their societies of origin and settlement 32 Theories of Transnationality and Transnationalism Transnational processes and practices - are the multiple ties and interactions – economic, political, social, and cultural – that link people, communities, and institutions across the borders of nation-states 33 Theories of Global Culture Global consciousness - an awareness of the world as a single place 34 Theories of Global Culture Homogenization theories - see a global cultural convergence and would tend to highlight the rise of world beat, world cuisines, world tourism, uniform consumption patterns, and cosmopolitanism 35 Theories of Global Culture Heterogeneity approaches - see a continued cultural difference and highlight local cultural autonomy, cultural resistance to homogenization, cultural clashes and polarization, and distinct subjective experiences of globalization 36 Theories of Global Culture Hybridization - stresses new and constantly evolving cultural forms and identities produced by manifold transnational processes and the fusion of distinct cultural processes 37 Theories of Global Culture McDonaldization - refers to sociocultural processes by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant came to dominate more and more sectors of US and later world society 38 Theories of Global Culture Globalization of nothing - culturally meaningful institutions, sites, and practices locally controlled and rich in indigenous content – ‘something’ – are being replaced by (corporate- driven) uniform social forms devoid of distinctive substance – ‘nothing’. 39 Thank you. Any questions? 40