Topic 1: Introduction to Globalization Studies Concepts and Theories.

Topic 1:Introduction to Globalization Studies

Concepts and Theories

Themes:

What is Globalization?

How can we conceptualize globalization?

What are the distinctive processes of globalization?

Key Concepts of Globalization

Postmodernism （後現代主義） was the concept of the 1980s, while globalization was the concept of the 1990s and the new millennium.

David Harvey: the word “Globalization” （全球化） was first used in mid 70s by American Express.

Key Concepts of Globalization

The term then spread out quickly in the financial and business press.

It replaces the term “internationalization” （國際化） and “transnationalization“ (跨國化 ).

Caution!

They are differentconcepts!

Internationalization:

• increasing interwovenness （相互交織） of national economies through international trade.– nation state （民族國家）

Key concept to remember!

Transnationalization:

• the increasing organization of production on a cross-border basis ( 以跨境作為基礎的 ) by multinational organizations. – crossing nation-states


Globalization:

Nation-state is no longer important. Globalization is not equal with the geographical integration of national economies, but making of new spatial scales.

Anthony Giddens' conceptualization:

Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.


Anthony Giddens Famous person! Please remember him!


What happen in a local area is not only closely related to the outside world, but intensively affected each other.


This is a dialectical process ( 辯證過程) because such local happenings may move in an obverse direction from the very distanciated relations that shape them.

Time/ Space Distantiation

Anthony Giddens: Local transformation is as much a part of globalization as the lateral extension ( 橫向擴張 ) of social connections across time and space.

Anthony Giddens: Time /space distantiation ( 時空遠距化 )


Time/ Space Compression

The most important concept suggested by David Harvey: time/space compression ( 時空壓縮 ).


David Harvey Famous person! Please remember him!

Globalization:

The shrinking of the world to a “global village” ( 地球村 )- a virtual disappearance of space through time.

Today people can have social relations and even organized community relations regardless of space.

Globalization: Roland Robertson: new experience

as “global consciousness” ( 全球意識 ).

Globalization

Manuel Castells: a new age of “network society” ( 網絡社會 ) or “global informational society” ( 全球信息社會 ).

Famous person! Please remember him!

Manuel Castells

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0631221409/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-3376499-3097438

It allows the emergence of "imagined" communities, cultures and even systems of authority and social control that cross borders.

Globalization:

Globalization:

Elements of globalization: transborder capital, labor, management, news, images, and data flows.

Globalization:

The most common features: the transnationality of production, commerce, consumption, socio-cultural reproduction （社會及文化的再生產） , and politics.

Globalization:

Other features: increased instability of market; organizational decentralization of firms, flexibility of production ( 彈性生產 ); privatization ( 私有化 ) of public finance; and increased social inequality and social exclusion (社會排斥 ).

In Short:

Globalization is a compression of time and space which privileges the capitalist economies ( 資本主義經濟體系 ) over non-capitalist and socialist societies( 社會主義社會 ).

In Short:

After all, globalization is first and foremost a political contest ( 政治競賽 ) - not an equal game on an equal basis.

Yet, it is a never complete ( 永不完整 )and contradictory process （矛盾過程） - an uneasy correlation of economic forces, power relations and social structures.

Modernization Theories

Modernization Theories ( 現代化理論 ): linear progress to be modern



Backdrop: the fear of socialism ( 社會主義 ) and the liberation of colonialism ( 殖民主義的解放 ) in the time of cold war ( 冷戰 ).


U.S. President Truman ( 杜魯門 ) in his inaugural address of 1949 announced the Point Four Program of Development Aid.

It became the policy of the US to aid the underdeveloped countries.


Every country becomes western countries- western oriented model


Universalizing value: measured objectively- level of education, occupation, income, wealth, information and capability of consumption.


The world is divided into First World and Third World, or developed countries and developing countries.


Economic and Technological Support is not enough

Political, Social and Cultural Barriers have to be cleared off

Politically- undemocratic political systems

Socially- traditional sexual division of labor

Culturally- traditional culture is not aggressive


There is a call for comprehensive social and cultural change.

Modernization is a social process to incorporate all kinds of countries into the same model of western countries.


It believes that all societies at different speeds, are moving towards the same direction, that is the path of modernity.



Modernization is very ideological ( 意識型態的 ), and is criticized as Euro-centric (以歐洲為中心的 ).

Modernization, after all, is an attempt to preach American or western way of life.

Dependency and World System Theories

Dependency theories ( 依附理論 ) criticized the modernization theory.

It brings the structure of unequal relationships between rich and poor countries back into the picture.


The main argument: capitalist development actually created greater gap between First World and Third World countries, making them further dependent on First World countries for survival or development.



Countries develop at an uneven pace in relation to one another.

And even inside the backward countries themselves, advanced and primitive features of economy and society co-exist.

The original version of dependency and underdevelopment theory is then further developed by Gunder Frank and many others.



The dependency theory has been a world system approach, and the distrust of a global capitalist system:

a. The subordination of the local economy to the structure of advanced capitalist countries. -- only produced primary goods for the industrial West.

b. External orientation -- an extreme dependency on overseas markets, both for capital and technology sourcing and for production outlets.


Long History Perspective

Gundar Frank: globalism as fact of life already existed since at least 1500 for the world.

The perception of a major new departure is (mis)informed by a Eurocentric point of view.


We are mis-guided into thinking that our world is only just now undergoing a belated process of “globalization”.


Globalization in Question: globalization is not a new social or historical force.

In reviewing the historical evidence of world trade and capital flows, the level international economy in the present era is not unprecedented ( 不是前所未有的 ).

http://www.polity.co.uk/global/images/hirst.jpg


1. In terms of amount of good and services that cross frontiers-- The percentage of all goods and services that are produced world-wide reached 33% in 1913. Today it is about 31%.

2. In relation to total world output-- the percentage share of world production subject to transnational corporate control has remained relatively stable in the past one hundred year.


3. In term of global reach of world capitalism over the five continents-- the percentage of two continents, Latin America and Africa, in world trade and foreign capital flows had actually been declined.

The expansive phase of capitalism is over: only a phase of deepening, but not widening capitalist integration.


Distinctive Processes of Globalization

1) as a spatial and economic process: whether contributed to the end of geography and the rise of a borderless world ( 無邊界的世界 ) or not;

2) as a process of political economy (政治經濟學 ): something qualitatively new, or the process had been happened five hundred years ago


Distinctive Processes of Globalization

3) as a socio-cultural process: whether leads to social polarization (社會兩極化 ), social exclusion, community fragmentation ( 社區零碎化 ), consumption homogeneity and identity crisis ( 身份危機 ).

4) As a cultural critique: whether as a neo-liberal ideology ( 新自由主義意識型態 ) or a myth of market power.


Question:

** Is globalization merely a catch-all buzzword, an overstated process or merely an ideology ( 意識型態 )?

Topic 1: Introduction to Globalization Studies Concepts and Theories.

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