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Globalization

Reduced barriers to trade and communication across international boundaries have changed politics, culture, and economics across the globe. 

Overview

  • Globalization refers to the process by which technological, economic, political, and cultural exchanges make the world a more interconnected and interdependent place.
  • Although the phenomenon of globalization is not new, political, economic, and technological developments in the 1990s accelerated the processes of globalization and contributed to the emergence of a public debate about its advantages and disadvantages.
  • The effects of globalization have been uneven, with some people, industries, and countries benefiting more than others.

What is globalization?

Globalization refers to the technological, political, economic, financial, and cultural exchanges between peoples and nations that have made and continue to make the world a more interconnected and interdependent place. In the business world, this includes increased trade and investment flows, currency exchange, and the rise of multinational corporations. Communication and transportation technologies are capable of linking people who are physically distant from one another, thereby facilitating the exchange of culture, knowledge, and ideas.1
Although the concept and vocabulary of globalization is fairly recent, emerging most forcefully in the 1990s, the processes of globalization are as old as history itself. This is because humans have always engaged in cultural exchange, the dissemination of knowledge, and the trade of goods and services. However, important developments in the latter part of the twentieth century, particularly the 1990s, accelerated these processes.2

Globalization in the 1990s

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the world became more interconnected. This is because the communist bloc countries, which had previously been intentionally isolated from the capitalist West, began to integrate into the global market economy. Trade and investment increased, while barriers to migration and to cultural exchange were lowered.
Photograph of a McDonald's in St. Petersburg featuring a sign in Cyrillic characters.
A McDonald's restaurant in St. Petersburg. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the former communist bloc nations began to integrate into the global economy. Photograph by Dirke Ingo Franke. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Technological advances, including mobile phones and especially the internet, have contributed to globalization by connecting people all over the globe. The World Wide Web links billions of people and devices, providing innumerable opportunities for the exchange of goods, services, cultural products, knowledge, and ideas.
Free trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico signed in 1992, removed barriers to the free flow of people, goods, and services, thereby facilitating greater trade, investment, and migration across national borders.
Though free trade and open markets have led to job losses in some sectors in certain countries, and have displaced workers in certain industries, they can also increase economic growth and prosperity.3 For instance, NAFTA has been criticized for moving almost three-quarters of a million manufacturing jobs out of the United States and into Mexico, but US trade with Mexico increased substantially as a direct result of the agreement.

The dark side of globalization

Although globalization has had many positive effects and has contributed to greater prosperity in many countries, it has a dark side as well. Global terrorist networks have used the conditions created by globalization to enhance their own influence and to promote a culture of intolerance and hate. For example, the al-Qaeda members who perpetrated the attack on September 11th used mobile phone technology and the internet to coordinate their plans. They were also easily able to move from one country to another because of lowered barriers to international travel and mobility.4
Moreover, the increasing interconnectedness of the world economy and international finance has heightened the risk of global economic catastrophe. This is because banking or financial failures in one country will lead to crises in other countries, and thus will become internationalized rather than remaining isolated. This was the case with the Great Recession of 2008-2009, during which the financial crisis in the US subprime mortgage market led to a global economic meltdown.5

What do you think?

How would you define globalization in your own words?
How have technological developments influenced the process of globalization?
Have the overall effects of globalization been more positive or negative?

Want to join the conversation?

  • blobby green style avatar for user bailnelso
    The article did not discuss creating sustainable practices that will sustain the global economy in the future. How would sustainability/environmental protection measures keep the global economy from collapsing in the future?
    (13 votes)
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  • starky ultimate style avatar for user winvelan15
    How fast did the USSR actually blend into the global economy, and bring worldwide companies such as McDonald's into Russia?
    (11 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user N_Khan
    Given evidence that the scale of the global economy is too large compared to the ecological capacity of the planet (e.g., ecological footprint and overshoot, species extinctions, pollution problems), why do economists overwhelmingly view increasing the volume of economic activity as desirable?
    (7 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user bailnelso
      Most of these economists are only looking at the effects on money and flow of goods and knowledge rather than the environment when it comes to globalization. The still increasing level of globalization is good for the world when it is prospering which is why it is shown as desirable, but as the article said, this creates a domino effect when one country begins to have economic troubles. Eventually though, the world will run out of resources to sustain its global economy if no measures are put into place to create sustainable energies and practices in different industries.
      (9 votes)
  • marcimus purple style avatar for user 24anieves
    Why do some people believe that their working conditions are worsened due to globalization?
    (3 votes)
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    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      People who believe that their working conditions have been worsened by globalisation generally rely on their personal experience to give foundation to these beliefs. They merely look at their working conditions before globalisation, and "within" or "after" globalisation, and make comparisons. Many auto workers in North America can point to specific things. Many workers who have stayed with local companies that were bought out by international capital (one feature of globalisation) can point to how the new owners have made things worse. Go to once prosperous industrial areas and see the havoc which globalisation has wrought upon them.
      (8 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Peaches
    How would you define globalization in your own words?

    The foundation being laid for the Antichrist's kingdom spoken of in Daniel and Revelation. Globalization really IS an idea as old as history itself; it goes at least all the way back to the Tower of Babel spoken of in Genesis. History makes so much more sense when you read a Bible. The bones for all of it are laid bare in Scripture.
    (3 votes)
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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Zev Oster
    I don't think that it is fair to say that lower international travel standards contributed much more than the relief of a small headache for Al-Qaeda and their counterparts. Studies have shown that unless modern standards are rigorous to the point of overbearing (take Israel, which now has mostly internal terrorism as Jews, Christians and Muslims battle in the streets with cars, guns, and rockets), then they are relatively easy to circumnavigate. And even the most wanted terrorists can sneak through forgotten roads and the deserts between borders. Contrary to popular belief, one DOES simply walk into Mordor (and, as we have seen, Pakistan).
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user AdrielB
    how did globalization change international interactions between state
    (1 vote)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user 965515
    how did globalization change international interactions between states after 1900
    (0 votes)
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