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Week 1 to 2 Modules Defining Globalization

Filipino in the Contemporary World (Far Eastern University)

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The Contemporary World – Week 1

to 2 Module

Mhar Ant
Week 1 to

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Course Description
The course introduces us to the contemporary world by examining phenomenon of
globalization. Using the various disciplines of social sciences, it examines the economic, social,
political, technological, and others transformation that have created an increasing awareness of
the interconnectedness of the people and places around the globe

To provides an overview of the various debates in global governance, development, and sustainability.

To inculcate a sense of global citizenship and global ethical responsibility.

Course Objectives

Course Objectives Results/Outcome Expected

Competencies Distinguish different interpretations of and approaches to globalization.

Competencies Describe the emergence of the global economic, social, and cultural systems.

Competencies Analyze the various contemporary drivers of globalization.

Competencies Understanding the issues confronting the nation-state.

Competencies Assess the effects of globalization on different social media units.

Skills Analyze contemporary news events in the context of globalization.

Skills Analyze global issues in relations to Filipinos and the Philippines.

Write a research paper with proper citations on a topic related
Skills
to globalization.
Values Articulate personal positions on various global issues.

Values Identify the ethical implications of global citizenship.

Assessment Criteria
 25% Quizzes
 15% Recitation
 15% Midterm Essay
 25% Group Reports and other Research Papers
 30% Final Research Paper

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Class Schedule
Week Topic Assignment/Project

Week 1 - 2 Introduction to Globalization  Defining globalization.

 The global economy.

Week 3 - 5 The  Market integration.
Structures of Globalization  The global interstate system.
 Contemporary global governance.

Week 6 - 8  Global Divides: The North and the South.

A world of Regions
 Asian Regionalism.

Week 9
Midterm Exam

 Global media culture.

Week 10 - 11 A World of Ideas
 The globalization of religion.

Week Topic Assignment/Project

 The global city.

Global Population and Mobilit
Week 12 - 14  Global demograhy.
y
 Global migration.

Week 15 - 16  Sustainable development.

Towards a Sustainable World
 Global food security.

Week 17 - 18  Global citizenship.

Conclusion
 Research paper writing

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Introduction
The contemporary world is an ever-changing mix of social and political changes. While religious,
political, and ethnic conflicts continue, we are currently living in one of the most peaceful eras in the
history o. Challenges of the 21st century include emerging technologies, health care, overpopulation,
climate change, poverty, illiteracy, disease, and migration. How we choose to deal with these
emerging frontiers will shape this unit for future generations

Globalization is hard to define because of a complexity, the constant changing like the seasons and
the human society, by the influence of other people, and there is conflict to it. But some of people they
describe it as being a process, development, and it is a whether fragmentation or integration. That it is
also about the emerging connection, and relationship between social and economic not just in
regional, national, and also in different countries. It deals in political, social, and economic proportion.
And it is also a global integration of international trade and market, investments within or in the
companies, and the modern technology. Also, it is an interaction between people and companies from
one country to another for the investments and other benefits that are needed.

History of Globalization
Globalization is an historical process that began with the first movement of people out of Africa into
other parts of the world. Traveling short or long distances, migrants, merchants and others have
delivered their ideas, customs and products to new lands. The melding, borrowing and adaptation of
outside influences are found in many areas of human life.

When Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2018 announced it had chosen the ancient city of Xi’an
as the site for its new regional headquarters, the symbolic value wasn’t lost on the company: it had
brought globalization to its ancient birthplace, the start of the old Silk Road. It named its new offices
aptly: “Silk Road Headquarters”. The city where globalization had started more than 2,000 years ago
would also have a stake in globalization’s future

Silk roads (1st century BC-5th century AD, and 13th-14th centuries AD)

People have been trading goods for almost as long as they’ve been around. But as of the 1st century
BC, a remarkable phenomenon occurred. For the first time in history, luxury products from China
started to appear on the other edge of the Eurasian continent – in Rome. They got there after being
hauled for thousands of miles along the Silk Road. Trade had stopped being a local or regional affair
and started to become global.

That is not to say globalization had started in earnest. Silk was mostly a luxury good, and so were the
spices that were added to the intercontinental trade between Asia and Europe. As a percentage of the
total economy, the value of these exports was tiny, and many middlemen were involved to get the
goods to their destination. But global trade links were established, and for those involved, it was a
goldmine. From purchase price to final sales price, the multiple went in the dozens.The Silk Road
could prosper in part because two great empires dominated much of the route. If trade was
interrupted, it was most often because of blockades by local enemies of Rome or China. If the Silk
Road eventually closed, as it did after several centuries, the fall of the empires had everything to do
with it. And when it reopened in Marco Polo’s late medieval time, it was because the rise of a new
hegemonic empire: the Mongols. It is a pattern we’ll see throughout the history of trade: it thrives
when nations protect it, it falls when they don’t.

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Spice routes (7th-15th centuries)

The next chapter in trade happened thanks to

Islamic merchants. As the new religion spread in
all directions from its Arabian heartland in the
7th century, so did trade. The founder of Islam,
the prophet Mohammed, was famously a
merchant, as was his wife Khadija. Trade was
thus in the DNA of the new religion and its
followers, and that showed. By the early 9th
century, Muslim traders already dominated
Mediterranean and Indian Ocean trade;
afterwards, they could be found as far east as
Indonesia, which over time became a Muslim-
majority country, and as far west as Moorish
Spain.

The main focus of Islamic trade in those Middle Ages were spices. Unlike silk, spices were traded
mainly by sea since ancient times. But by the medieval era they had become the true focus of
international trade. Chief among them were the cloves, nutmeg and mace from the fabled Spice
islands – the Maluku islands in Indonesia. They were extremely expensive and in high demand, also
in Europe. But as with silk, they remained a luxury product, and trade remained relatively low volume.
Globalization still didn’t take off, but the original Belt (sea route) and Road (Silk Road) of trade
between East and West did now exist.

Age of Discovery (15th-18th centuries)

Truly global trade kicked off in the Age of Discovery. It was in this era, from the end of the 15th
century onwards, that European explorers connected East and West – and accidentally discovered
the Americas. Aided by the discoveries of the so-called “Scientific Revolution” in the fields of
astronomy, mechanics, physics and shipping, the Portuguese, Spanish and later the Dutch and the
English first “discovered”, then subjugated, and finally integrated new lands in their economies.

The Age of Discovery rocked the world. The most (in)famous “discovery” is that of America by
Columbus, which all but ended pre-Colombian civilizations. But the most consequential exploration
was the circumnavigation by Magellan: it opened the door to the Spice islands, cutting out Arab and
Italian middlemen. While trade once again remained small compared to total GDP, it certainly altered
people’s lives. Potatoes, tomatoes, coffee and chocolate were introduced in Europe, and the price of
spices fell steeply.

Yet economists today still don’t truly regard this era as one of true globalization. Trade certainly
started to become global, and it had even been the main reason for starting the Age of Discovery. But
the resulting global economy was still very much siloed and lopsided. The European empires set up
global supply chains, but mostly with those colonies they owned. Moreover, their colonial model was
chiefly one of exploitation, including the shameful legacy of the slave trade. The empires thus created
both a mercantilist and a colonial economy, but not a truly globalized one.

First wave of globalization (19th century-1914)

This started to change with the first wave of globalization, which roughly occurred over the century
ending in 1914. By the end of the 18th century, Great Britain had started to dominate the world both
geographically, through the establishment of the British Empire, and technologically, with innovations
like the steam engine, the industrial weaving machine and more. It was the era of the First Industrial
Revolution.

The “British” Industrial Revolution made for a fantastic twin engine of global trade. On the one hand,
steamships and trains could transport goods over thousands of miles, both within countries and
across countries. On the other hand, its industrialization allowed Britain to make products that were in

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demand all over the world, like iron, textiles and manufactured goods. “With its advanced industrial
technologies,” the BBC recently wrote, looking back to the era, “Britain was able to attack a huge and
rapidly expanding international market.”

The resulting globalization was obvious in the numbers. For about a century, trade grew on average
3% per year. That growth rate propelled exports from a share of 6% of global GDP in the early 19th
century, to 14% on the eve of World War I. As John Maynard Keynes, the economist, observed: “The
inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of
the whole Earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon
his doorstep.”

And, Keynes also noted, a similar situation was also true in the world of investing. Those with the
means in New York, Paris, London or Berlin could also invest in internationally active joint stock
companies. One of those, the French Compagnie de Suez, constructed the Suez Canal, connecting
the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean and opened yet another artery of world trade. Others built
railways in India, or managed mines in African colonies. Foreign direct investment, too, was
globalizing.

While Britain was the country that benefited most from this globalization, as it had the most capital
and technology, others did too, by exporting other goods. The invention of the refrigerated cargo ship
or “reefer ship” in the 1870s, for example, allowed for countries like Argentina and Uruguay, to enter
their golden age. They started to mass export meat, from cattle grown on their vast lands. Other
countries, too, started to specialize their production in those fields in which they were most
competitive.

But the first wave of globalization and industrialization also coincided with darker events, too. By the
end of the 19th century, the Khan Academy notes, “most [globalizing and industrialized] European
nations grabbed for a piece of Africa, and by 1900 the only independent country left on the continent
was Ethiopia”. In a similarly negative vein, large countries like India, China, Mexico or Japan, which
were previously powers to reckon with, were not either not able or not allowed to adapt to the
industrial and global trends. Either the Western powers put restraints on their independent
development, or they were otherwise outcompeted because of their lack of access to capital or
technology. Finally, many workers in the industrialized nations also did not benefit from globalization,
their work commoditized by industrial machinery, or their output undercut by foreign imports.

The world wars

It was a situation that was bound to end in a major crisis, and it did. In 1914, the outbreak of World
War I brought an end to just about everything the burgeoning high society of the West had gotten so
used to, including globalization. The ravage was complete. Millions of soldiers died in battle, millions
of civilians died as collateral damage, war replaced trade, destruction replaced construction, and
countries closed their borders yet again.

In the years between the world wars, the financial markets, which were still connected in a global web,
caused a further breakdown of the global economy and its links. The Great Depression in the US led
to the end of the boom in South America, and a run on the banks in many other parts of the world.
Another world war followed in 1939-1945. By the end of World War II, trade as a percentage of world
GDP had fallen to 5% – a level not seen in more than a hundred years.

Second and third wave of globalization

The story of globalization, however, was not over. The end of the World War II marked a new
beginning for the global economy. Under the leadership of a new hegemon, the United States of
America, and aided by the technologies of the Second Industrial Revolution, like the car and the
plane, global trade started to rise once again. At first, this happened in two separate tracks, as the
Iron Curtain divided the world into two spheres of influence. But as of 1989, when the Iron Curtain fell,
globalization became a truly global phenomenon.

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In the early decades after World War II, institutions like the European Union, and other free trade
vehicles championed by the US were responsible for much of the increase in international trade. In
the Soviet Union, there was a similar increase in trade, albeit through centralized planning rather than
the free market. The effect was profound. Worldwide, trade once again rose to 1914 levels: in 1989,
export once again counted for 14% of global GDP. It was paired with a steep rise in middle-class
incomes in the West.

Then, when the wall dividing East and West fell in Germany, and the Soviet Union collapsed,
globalization became an all-conquering force. The newly created World Trade Organization (WTO)
encouraged nations all over the world to enter into free-trade agreements, and most of them did,
including many newly independent ones. In 2001, even China, which for the better part of the 20th
century had been a secluded, agrarian economy, became a member of the WTO, and started to
manufacture for the world. In this “new” world, the US set the tone and led the way, but many others
benefited in their slipstream.

At the same time, a new technology from the Third Industrial Revolution, the internet, connected
people all over the world in an even more direct way. The orders Keynes could place by phone in
1914 could now be placed over the internet. Instead of having them delivered in a few weeks, they
would arrive at one’s doorstep in a few days. What was more, the internet also allowed for a further
global integration of value chains. You could do R&D in one country, sourcing in others, production in
yet another, and distribution all over the world.

The result has been a globalization on steroids. In the 2000s, global exports reached a milestone, as
they rose to about a quarter of global GDP. Trade, the sum of imports and exports, consequentially
grew to about half of world GDP. In some countries, like Singapore, Belgium, or others, trade is worth
much more than 100% of GDP. A majority of global population has benefited from this: more people
than ever before belong to the global middle class, and hundred of millions achieved that status by
participating in the global economy.

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Globalization 4.0

That brings us to today, when a new wave of globalization is once again upon us. In a world
increasingly dominated by two global powers, the US and China, the new frontier of globalization is
the cyber world. The digital economy, in its infancy during the third wave of globalization, is now
becoming a force to reckon with through e-commerce, digital services, 3D printing. It is further
enabled by artificial intelligence, but threatened by cross-border hacking and cyberattacks.

At the same time, a negative globalization is expanding too, through the global effect of climate
change. Pollution in one part of the world leads to extreme weather events in another. And the cutting
of forests in the few “green lungs” the world has left, like the Amazon rainforest, has a further
devastating effect on not just the world’s biodiversity, but its capacity to cope with hazardous
greenhouse gas emissions.

Globalization: Concepts and Concerns

GLOBALISATION has become an expression of common usage. Unfortunately, it connotes different
things to different people. To some, it represents a brave new world with no barriers. For some others,
it spells doom and destruction.

Broadly speaking, the term `globalisation' means integration of economies and societies through
cross country flows of information, ideas, technologies, goods, services, capital, finance and people.
The essence of globalisation is connectivity. Cross border integration can have several dimensions -
cultural, social, political and economic. In fact, some people fear cultural and social integration even
more than economic integration. However, the term globalisation is used here in the limited sense of
economic integration which can happen through the three channels of:

(a) trade in goods and services

(b) movement of capital
(c) flow of finance. Besides, there is also the channel through movement of people.

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Cultural globalization: refers to the interpenetration of cultures which, as a consequence, means
nations adopt principles, beliefs, and costumes of other nations, losing their unique culture to a
unique, globalized supra-culture.

Political globalization: the development and growing influence of international organizations such as
the UN or WHO means governmental action takes place at an international level. There are other
bodies operating a global level such as NGOs like Doctors without borders or Oxfam;

Sociological globalization: information moves almost in real-time, together with the interconnection
and interdependence of events and their consequences. People move all the time too, mixing and
integrating different societies.

Technological globalization: the phenomenon by which millions of people are interconnected thanks
to the power of the digital world via platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Skype or Youtube.

Geographic globalization: is the new organization and hierarchy of different regions of the world that
is constantly changing. Moreover, with transportation and flying made so easy and affordable, apart
from a few countries with demanding visas, it is possible to travel the world without barely any
restrictions.

Ecological globalization: accounts for the idea of considering planet Earth as a single global entity –
a common good all societies should protect since the weather affects everyone and we are all
protected by the same atmosphere. To this regard, it is often said that the poorest countries that have
been polluting the least will suffer the most from climate change.

The Benefits of Globalization

Globalization has benefits that cover many different areas. It reciprocally developed economies all
over the world and increased cultural exchanges. It also allowed financial exchanges between
companies, changing the paradigm of work. Many people are nowadays citizens of the world. The
origin of goods became secondary and geographic distance is no longer a barrier for many services to
happen. Let’s dig deeper.

The Engine of Globalization – An Economic Example

The most visible impacts of globalization are definitely the ones affecting the economic
world. Globalization has led to a sharp increase in trade and economic exchanges, but also to a
multiplication of financial exchanges.

In the 1970s world economies opened up and the development of free trade policies accelerated the
globalization phenomenon. Between 1950 and 2010, world exports increased 33-fold. This
significantly contributed to increasing the interactions between different regions of the world.
This acceleration of economic exchanges has led to strong global economic growth. It fostered as well
a rapid global industrial development that allowed the rapid development of many of the technologies
and commodities we have available nowadays.

Knowledge became easily shared and international cooperation among the brightest minds speeded
things up. According to some analysts, globalization has also contributed to improving global
economic conditions, creating much economic wealth (thas was, nevertheless, unequally distributed –
more information ahead).

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The Benefits of Globalization

Globalization – A Cultural Example

Together with economic and financial globalization, there has obviously also been cultural
globalization. Indeed, the multiplication of economic and financial exchanges has been followed by an
increase in human exchanges such as migration, expatriation or traveling. These human exchanges
have contributed to the development of cultural exchanges. This means that different customs and
habits shared among local communities have been shared among communities that (used to) have
different procedures and even different beliefs.

Good examples of cultural globalization are, for instance, the trading of commodities such as coffee or
avocados. Coffee is said to be originally from Ethiopia and consumed in the Arabid region.
Nonetheless, due to commercial trades after the 11th century, it is nowadays known as a globally
consumed commodity. Avocados, for instance, grown mostly under the tropical temperatures of
Mexico, the Dominican Republic or Peru. They started by being produced in small quantities to supply
the local populations but today guacamole or avocado toasts are common in meals all over the world.

Why Is Globalization Bad? The Negative Effects of

Globalization
Globalization is a complex phenomenon. As such, it has a considerable influence on several areas of
contemporary societies. Let’s take a look at some example of the negative effects globalization has
had so far.

The Economic Negative Effects of Globalization

Despite its benefits, the economic growth driven by globalization has not been done without
awakening criticism. The consequences of globalization are far from homogeneous: income
inequalities, disproportional wealth and trades that benefit parties differently. In the end, one of the

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criticisms is that some actors (countries, companies, individuals) benefit more from the phenomena of
globalization, while others are sometimes perceived as the “losers” of globalization. As a matter of
fact, a recent report from Oxfam says that 82% of the world’s generated wealth goes to 1% of the
population (see attached additional resource material).

The Negative Effects of Globalization on the Environment

Many critics have also pointed out that globalization has negative effects on the environment. Thus,
the massive development of transport that has been the basis of globalization is also responsible for
serious environmental problems such as greenhouse gas emissions, global warming or air pollution.

At the same time, global economic growth and industrial productivity are both the driving force and the
major consequences of globalization. They also have big environmental consequences as they
contribute to the depletion of natural resources, deforestation and the destruction of ecosystems and
loss of biodiversity. The worldwide distribution of goods is also creating a big garbage problem,
especially on what concerns plastic pollution.

Dissenting Opinions About Globalization

A small and rapidly decreasing number of scholars contend that existing accounts of
globalization are incorrect, imprecise, or exaggerated. They note that just about everything that can
be linked to some transnational process is cited as evidence for globalization and its growing
influence. Hence, they suspect that such general observations often amount to little more than
‘globaloney’ (Held and McGrew, 2007; Rosenberg, 2000; Veseth, 2010). The arguments of these
globalization critics fall into three broad categories.

Representatives of thefirst group dispute the usefulness of globalization as a sufficiently precise

analytical concept.

Members of the second group point to the limited nature of globalizing processes, emphasizing that
the world is not nearly as integrated as many globalization proponents believe. In their view, the term
‘globalization’ does not constitute an accurate label for theactual state of affairs.

The third group of critics disputes the novelty of the process while acknowledging the existence of
moderate globalizing tendencies. They argue that those who refer to globalization as a recent process

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miss the bigger picture and fall prey to their narrow historical framework. Let us examine the
respective arguments of these three groups in more detail.

Rejectionists

Scholars who dismiss the utility of globalization as an analytical concept typically advance their
arguments from within a larger criticism of similarly vague words employed in academic discourse.
Besides globalization, another often-cited example for such analytically impoverished concepts is the
complex and ambiguous phenomenon of nationalism. Craig Calhoun (1993), for example, argues that
nationalism and its corollary terms ‘have proved notoriously hard concepts to define’ because
‘nationalisms are extremely varied phenomena’, and ‘any definition will legitimate some claims and
delegitimate others’. Writing in the same critical vein, Susan Strange (1996) considers globalization a
prime example of such a vacuous term, suggesting that it has been used in academic discourse to
refer to ‘anything from the Internet to a hamburger’. Similarly, Linda Weiss (1998) objects to the term
as ‘a big idea resting on slim foundations’.

Scholarly suggestions for improvement point in two different directions.

The first is to challenge the academic community to provide additional examples of how the
term ‘globalization’ obscures more than it enlightens. Such empirically based accounts would
serveas a warning to extreme globalization proponents. Ultimately, the task of more careful
researchers should be to break the concept of globalization into smaller, more manageable
parts that contain a higher analytical value because they can be more easily associated with
empirical processes. This rationale underlies Robert Holton's (1998) suggestion to abandon
all general theoretical analyses in favour of middle-range approaches that seek to provide
specific explanations of particulars.

The second avenue for improvement involves my own suggestion to complement the
socialscientific enterprise of exploring globalization as an objective process with more
interpretive studies of the ideological project of globalism. Following this argument, the central
task for scholars working in the emerging field of globalization studies would be to identify and
evaluate the ideological manoeuvres of prominent proponents and opponents who have filled
the term with values and meanings that bolster their respective political agendas .

Sceptics

The second group emphasizes the limited nature of current globalizing processes. This perspective is
perhaps best reflected in the writings of Wade (1996); and Hirst, Thompson and Bromley (2009). See
also Rugman (2001). In their detailed historical analysis of economic globalization, Hirst and
Thompson (2009) claim that the world economy is not a truly global phenomenon, but one centred on
Europe, eastern Asia, and North America. The authors emphasize that the majority of economic
activity around the world still remains primarily national in origin and scope. Presenting recent data on
trade, foreign direct investment, and financial flows, the authors warn against drawing global
conclusions from increased levels of economic interaction in advanced industrial countries. Hirst and
Thompson advance an argument against the existence of economic globalization based on empirical
data in order to attack the general misuse of the concept. Without a truly global economic system,
they insist, there can be no such thing as globalization: ‘[A]s we proceeded [with our economic
research] our skepticism deepened until we became convinced that globalization, as conceived by the
more extreme globalizers, is largely a myth.’ Doremus et al. (1998) and Zysman (1996)
reached a similar conclusion.

Buried under an avalanche of relevant data, one can nonetheless detect a critical-normative message
in the Hirst–Thompson thesis: it is to show that exaggerated accounts of an ‘iron logic of economic
globalization’ tend to produce disempowering political effects.

For example, the authors convincingly demonstrate that certain political forces have used the
thesis o feconomic globalization to propose national economic deregulation and the reduction

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of welfare programmes. The implementation of such policies stands to benefit neo-liberal
interests.

But there also remain a number of problems with the Hirst–Thompson thesis. For example, as several
critics have pointed out, the authors set overly high standards for the economy in order to be counted
as ‘fully globalized’. See, for example, Held et al. (1999) and McGrew and

Held (2007). Moreover, their efforts to construct an abstract model of a perfectly globalized economy
unnecessarily polarize the topic by pressuring the reader to either completely embrace or entirely
reject the concept of globalization. Perhaps the most serious shortcoming of the Hirst–Thompson
thesis lies in its attempt to counteract neo-liberal economic determinism with a good dose of Marxist
economic determinism. Their argument implicitly assumes that globalization is primarily an economic
phenomenon. As a result, they portray all other dimensions of globalization – culture, politics, and
ideology – as reflections of deeper economic processes. While paying lip service to the
multidimensional character of globalization, their own analysis ignores the logical implications of this
assertion. After all, if globalization is truly a complex, multilevel phenomenon, then economic relations
constitute only one among many globalizing tendencies. It would therefore be entirely possible to
argue for the significance of globalization even if it can be shown that increased transnational
economic activity appears to be limited to advanced industrial countries.

Modifiers

The third and final group of globalization critics disputes the novelty of the process, implying that the
label ‘globalization’ has often been applied in a historically imprecise manner. Robert Gilpin (2000), for
example, confirms the existence of globalizing tendencies, but he also insists that many important
aspects of globalization are not novel developments. Citing relevant data collected by the prominent
American economist Paul Krugman, Gilpin notes that the world economy in the late 1990s appeared
to be even less integrated in a number of important respects than it was prior to the outbreak of World
War I. Even if one were to accept the most optimistic assessment of the actual volume of
transnational economic activity, the most one could say is that the post-war international economy has
simply restored globalization to approximately the same level that existed in 1913. Gilpin also points
to two additional factors that seem to support his position: the globalization of labour was actually
much greater prior to World War I, and international migration declined considerably after
1918. Hence, Gilpin warns his readers against accepting the arguments of ‘hyper-globalizers’.
For a similar assessment, see Burtless et al. (1998) and Rodrik (1997).

Similar criticisms come from the proponents of world-system theory. Pioneered by neo-Marxist
scholars such as Immanuel Wallerstein (1979) and Andre Gunder Frank (1998), world-system
theorists argue that the modern capitalist economy in which we live today has been global since its
inception five centuries ago. See also Chase-Dunn (1998). For a Gramscian neo- Marxist perspective,
see Rupert and Smith (2002). World-system theorists reject, therefore, the use of the term
‘globalization’ as referring exclusively to relatively recent phenomena. Instead, they emphasize that
globalizing tendencies have been proceeding along the continuum of modernization for a long time.

However, more recent studies produced by world-system scholars (Amin, 1996; Carroll et al., 1996;
Robinson, 2004) acknowledge that the pace of globalization has significantly quickened in the last few
decades of the twentieth century. Ash Amin (1997), for example, has suggested that much of the
criticism of globalization as a new phenomenon has been based on quantitative analyses of trade and
output that neglect the qualitative shift in social and political relations. This qualitative difference in the
globalizing process, he argues, has resulted in the world-capitalist system's new configuration as a
complex network of international corporations, banks, and financial flows. Hence, these global
developments may indeed warrant a new label. In their efforts to gauge the nature of this qualitative
difference, world-system theorists like Barry K. Gills (2002) have begun to focus more closely on the
interaction between dominant-class interests and cultural transnational practices. In so doing, they
have begun to raise important normative questions, suggesting that the elements of the ‘ideological
superstructure’ – politics, ideas, values, and beliefs – may, at times, neutralize or supersede economic
forces. Leslie Sklair (2002), for example, highlights the importance of what he calls ‘the ‘culture-
ideology of global consumerism’.

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The Contemporary World – Week 1 to 2 Module

Summary on the Proponents of Dissenting Opinions About Globalization

Overall, then, all three groups of globalization critics make an important contribution to academic
approaches on the subject. Their insistence on a more careful and precise usage of the term forces
the participants in the debate to hone their analytical skills. Moreover, their intervention serves as an
important reminder that some aspects of globalization may neither constitute new developments nor
reach to all corners of the earth. However, by focusing too narrowly on abstract issues of terminology,
the globalization critics tend to dismiss too easily the significance and extent of today's globalizing
tendencies. Finally, the representatives of these three groups show a clear inclination to conceptualize
globalization mostly along economic lines, thereby often losing sight of its multidimensional character

Activity
Activity 1 – Draw a conceptual map about Globalization, be detailed and ensure that your map reflects
the points discuss in the modules and presentation video

Activity 2 – Choose one concept of Globalization and discuss what are the positive and negative
impact of Globalization: site examples, cases, or news report.

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