important of globalization essay

What Is Globalization?

Explore examples of globalization to understand the benefits and challenges of our increasingly interconnected world in this video.

What are the effects of globalization?

We live in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. The growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures and populations—or "globalization"—touches every part of our lives, from the products we buy to the food we eat to the ways we communicate with one another. Globalization is also tied to some of the other biggest issues we face in the modern era, including climate change , trade , terrorism , and the spread of deadly diseases.

The intertwining of countries and markets all over the world has both benefits and downsides, so policies that support integration have both proponents and detractors. No matter which side you’re on, globalization is simply a reality of modern life; therefore, it’s important to understand how it affects us and the choices we make.

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Globalization

Covering a wide range of distinct political, economic, and cultural trends, the term “globalization” remains crucial to contemporary political and academic debate. In contemporary popular discourse, globalization often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of the following phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal (or “free market”) policies in the world economy (“economic liberalization”), the growing dominance of western (or even American) forms of political, economic, and cultural life (“westernization” or “Americanization”), a global political order built on liberal notions of international law (the “global liberal order”), an ominous network of top-down rule by global elites (“globalism” or “global technocracy”), the proliferation of new information technologies (the “Internet Revolution”), as well as the notion that humanity stands at the threshold of realizing one single unified community in which major sources of social conflict have vanished (“global integration”). Globalization is a politically-contested phenomenon about which there are significant disagreements and struggles, with many nationalist and populist movements and leaders worldwide (including Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and former US President Donald Trump) pushing back against what they view as its unappealing features.

Fortunately, recent social theory has formulated a more precise concept of globalization than those typically offered by politicians and pundits. Although sharp differences continue to separate participants in the ongoing debate about the term, most contemporary social theorists endorse the view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which the significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in the face of a no less dramatic acceleration in the temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity. Geographical distance is typically measured in time. As the time necessary to connect distinct geographical locations is reduced, distance or space undergoes compression or “annihilation.” The human experience of space is intimately connected to the temporal structure of those activities by means of which we experience space. Changes in the temporality of human activity inevitably generate altered experiences of space or territory. Theorists of globalization disagree about the precise sources of recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of human life. Nonetheless, they generally agree that alterations in humanity’s experiences of space and time are working to undermine the importance of local and even national boundaries in many arenas of human endeavor. Since globalization contains far-reaching implications for virtually every facet of human life, it necessarily suggests the need to rethink key questions of normative political theory.

1. Globalization in the History of Ideas

2. globalization in contemporary social theory, 3. the normative challenges of globalization, other internet resources, related entries.

The term globalization has only become commonplace in the last three decades, and academic commentators who employed the term as late as the 1970s accurately recognized the novelty of doing so (Modelski 1972). At least since the advent of industrial capitalism, however, intellectual discourse has been replete with allusions to phenomena strikingly akin to those that have garnered the attention of recent theorists of globalization. Nineteenth and twentieth-century philosophy, literature, and social commentary include numerous references to an inchoate yet widely shared awareness that experiences of distance and space are inevitably transformed by the emergence of high-speed forms of transportation (for example, rail and air travel) and communication (the telegraph or telephone) that dramatically heighten possibilities for human interaction across existing geographical and political divides (Harvey 1989; Kern 1983). Long before the introduction of the term globalization into recent popular and scholarly debate, the appearance of novel high-speed forms of social activity generated extensive commentary about the compression of space.

Writing in 1839, an English journalist commented on the implications of rail travel by anxiously postulating that as distance was “annihilated, the surface of our country would, as it were, shrivel in size until it became not much bigger than one immense city” (Harvey 1996, 242). A few years later, Heinrich Heine, the émigré German-Jewish poet, captured this same experience when he noted: “space is killed by the railways. I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries were advancing on Paris. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the North Sea’s breakers are rolling against my door” (Schivelbusch 1978, 34). Another young German émigré, the socialist theorist Karl Marx, in 1848 formulated the first theoretical explanation of the sense of territorial compression that so fascinated his contemporaries. In Marx’s account, the imperatives of capitalist production inevitably drove the bourgeoisie to “nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere.” The juggernaut of industrial capitalism constituted the most basic source of technologies resulting in the annihilation of space, helping to pave the way for “intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations,” in contrast to a narrow-minded provincialism that had plagued humanity for untold eons (Marx 1848, 476). Despite their ills as instruments of capitalist exploitation, Marx argued, new technologies that increased possibilities for human interaction across borders ultimately represented a progressive force in history. They provided the necessary infrastructure for a cosmopolitan future socialist civilization, while simultaneously functioning in the present as indispensable organizational tools for a working class destined to undertake a revolution no less oblivious to traditional territorial divisions than the system of capitalist exploitation it hoped to dismantle.

European intellectuals have hardly been alone in their fascination with the experience of territorial compression, as evinced by the key role played by the same theme in early twentieth-century American thought. In 1904, the literary figure Henry Adams diagnosed the existence of a “law of acceleration,” fundamental to the workings of social development, in order to make sense of the rapidly changing spatial and temporal contours of human activity. Modern society could only be properly understood if the seemingly irrepressible acceleration of basic technological and social processes was given a central place in social and historical analysis (Adams 1931 [1904]). John Dewey argued in 1927 that recent economic and technological trends implied the emergence of a “new world” no less noteworthy than the opening up of America to European exploration and conquest in 1492. For Dewey, the invention of steam, electricity, and the telephone offered formidable challenges to relatively static and homogeneous forms of local community life that had long represented the main theatre for most human activity. Economic activity increasingly exploded the confines of local communities to a degree that would have stunned our historical predecessors, for example, while the steamship, railroad, automobile, and air travel considerably intensified rates of geographical mobility. Dewey went beyond previous discussions of the changing temporal and spatial contours of human activity, however, by suggesting that the compression of space posed fundamental questions for democracy. Dewey observed that small-scale political communities (for example, the New England township), a crucial site for the exercise of effective democratic participation, seemed ever more peripheral to the great issues of an interconnected world. Increasingly dense networks of social ties across borders rendered local forms of self-government ineffective. Dewey wondered, “How can a public be organized, we may ask, when literally it does not stay in place?” (Dewey 1927, 140). To the extent that democratic citizenship minimally presupposes the possibility of action in concert with others, how might citizenship be sustained in a social world subject to ever more astonishing possibilities for movement and mobility? New high-speed technologies attributed a shifting and unstable character to social life, as demonstrated by increased rates of change and turnover in many arenas of activity (most important perhaps, the economy) directly affected by them, and the relative fluidity and inconstancy of social relations there. If citizenship requires some modicum of constancy and stability in social life, however, did not recent changes in the temporal and spatial conditions of human activity bode poorly for political participation? How might citizens come together and act in concert when contemporary society’s “mania for motion and speed” made it difficult for them even to get acquainted with one another, let alone identify objects of common concern? (Dewey 1927, 140).

The unabated proliferation of high-speed technologies is probably the main source of the numerous references in intellectual life since 1950 to the annihilation of distance. The Canadian cultural critic Marshall McLuhan made the theme of a technologically based “global village,” generated by social “acceleration at all levels of human organization,” the centerpiece of an anxiety-ridden analysis of new media technologies in the 1960s (McLuhan 1964, 103). Arguing in the 1970s and 1980s that recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of social life exacerbated authoritarian political trends, the French social critic Paul Virilio seemed to confirm many of Dewey’s darkest worries about the decay of democracy. According to his analysis, the high-speed imperatives of modern warfare and weapons systems strengthened the executive and debilitated representative legislatures. The compression of territory thereby paved the way for executive-centered emergency government (Virilio 1977). But it was probably the German philosopher Martin Heidegger who most clearly anticipated contemporary debates about globalization. Heidegger not only described the “abolition of distance” as a constitutive feature of our contemporary condition, but he linked recent shifts in spatial experience to no less fundamental alterations in the temporality of human activity: “All distances in time and space are shrinking. Man now reaches overnight, by places, places which formerly took weeks and months of travel” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger also accurately prophesied that new communication and information technologies would soon spawn novel possibilities for dramatically extending the scope of virtual reality : “Distant sites of the most ancient cultures are shown on film as if they stood this very moment amidst today’s street traffic…The peak of this abolition of every possibility of remoteness is reached by television, which will soon pervade and dominate the whole machinery of communication” (Heidegger 1950, 165). Heidegger’s description of growing possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness in human experience ultimately proved no less apprehensive than the views of many of his predecessors. In his analysis, the compression of space increasingly meant that from the perspective of human experience “everything is equally far and equally near.” Instead of opening up new possibilities for rich and multi-faceted interaction with events once distant from the purview of most individuals, the abolition of distance tended to generate a “uniform distanceless” in which fundamentally distinct objects became part of a bland homogeneous experiential mass (Heidegger 1950, 166). The loss of any meaningful distinction between “nearness” and “distance” contributed to a leveling down of human experience, which in turn spawned an indifference that rendered human experience monotonous and one-dimensional.

Since the mid-1980s, social theorists have moved beyond the relatively underdeveloped character of previous reflections on the compression or annihilation of space to offer a rigorous conception of globalization. To be sure, major disagreements remain about the precise nature of the causal forces behind globalization, with David Harvey (1989 1996) building directly on Marx’s pioneering explanation of globalization, while others (Giddens 19990; Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999) question the exclusive focus on economic factors characteristic of the Marxist approach. Nonetheless, a consensus about the basic rudiments of the concept of globalization appears to be emerging.

First, recent analysts associate globalization with deterritorialization , according to which a growing variety of social activities takes place irrespective of the geographical location of participants. As Jan Aart Scholte observes, “global events can – via telecommunication, digital computers, audiovisual media, rocketry and the like – occur almost simultaneously anywhere and everywhere in the world” (Scholte 1996, 45). Globalization refers to increased possibilities for action between and among people in situations where latitudinal and longitudinal location seems immaterial to the social activity at hand. Even though geographical location remains crucial for many undertakings (for example, farming to satisfy the needs of a local market), deterritorialization manifests itself in many social spheres. Business people on different continents now engage in electronic commerce; academics make use of the latest Internet conferencing equipment to organize seminars in which participants are located at disparate geographical locations; the Internet allows people to communicate instantaneously with each other notwithstanding vast geographical distances separating them. Territory in the sense of a traditional sense of a geographically identifiable location no longer constitutes the whole of “social space” in which human activity takes places. In this initial sense of the term, globalization refers to the spread of new forms of non-territorial social activity (Ruggie 1993; Scholte 2000).

Second, theorists conceive of globalization as linked to the growth of social interconnectedness across existing geographical and political boundaries. In this view, deterritorialization is a crucial facet of globalization. Yet an exclusive focus on it would be misleading. Since the vast majority of human activities is still tied to a concrete geographical location, the more decisive facet of globalization concerns the manner in which distant events and forces impact on local and regional endeavors (Tomlinson 1999, 9). For example, this encyclopedia might be seen as an example of a deterritorialized social space since it allows for the exchange of ideas in cyberspace. The only prerequisite for its use is access to the Internet. Although substantial inequalities in Internet access still exist, use of the encyclopedia is in principle unrelated to any specific geographical location. However, the reader may very well be making use of the encyclopedia as a supplement to course work undertaken at a school or university. That institution is not only located at a specific geographical juncture, but its location is probably essential for understanding many of its key attributes: the level of funding may vary according to the state or region where the university is located, or the same academic major might require different courses and readings at a university in China, for example, than in Argentina or Norway. Globalization refers to those processes whereby geographically distant events and decisions impact to a growing degree on “local” university life. For example, the insistence by powerful political leaders in wealthy countries that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank recommend to Latin and South American countries that they commit themselves to a particular set of economic policies might result in poorly paid teachers and researchers as well as large, understaffed lecture classes in São Paolo or Lima; the latest innovations in information technology from a computer research laboratory in India could quickly change the classroom experience of students in British Columbia or Tokyo. Globalization refers “to processes of change which underpin a transformation in the organization of human affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and continents” (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999, 15). Globalization in this sense is a matter of degree since any given social activity might influence events more or less faraway: even though a growing number of activities seems intermeshed with events in distant continents, certain human activities remain primarily local or regional in scope. Also, the magnitude and impact of the activity might vary: geographically removed events could have a relatively minimal or a far more extensive influence on events at a particular locality. Finally, we might consider the degree to which interconnectedness across frontiers is no longer merely haphazard but instead predictable and regularized (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999).

Third, globalization must also include reference to the speed or velocity of social activity. Deterritorialization and interconnectedness initially seem chiefly spatial in nature. Yet it is easy to see how these spatial shifts are directly tied to the acceleration of crucial forms of social activity. As we observed above in our discussion of the conceptual forerunners to the present-day debate on globalization, the proliferation of high-speed transportation, communication, and information technologies constitutes the most immediate source for the blurring of geographical and territorial boundaries that prescient observers have diagnosed at least since the mid-nineteenth century. The compression of space presupposes rapid-fire forms of technology; shifts in our experiences of territory depend on concomitant changes in the temporality of human action. High-speed technology only represents the tip of the iceberg, however. The linking together and expanding of social activities across borders is predicated on the possibility of relatively fast flows and movements of people, information, capital, and goods. Without these fast flows, it is difficult to see how distant events could possibly posses the influence they now enjoy. High-speed technology plays a pivotal role in the velocity of human affairs. But many other factors contribute to the overall pace and speed of social activity. The organizational structure of the modern capitalist factory offers one example; certain contemporary habits and inclinations, including the “mania for motion and speed” described by Dewey, represent another. Deterritorialization and the expansion of interconnectedness are intimately tied to the acceleration of social life, while social acceleration itself takes many different forms (Eriksen 2001; Rosa 2013). Here as well, we can easily see why globalization is always a matter of degree. The velocity or speed of flows, movements, and interchanges across borders can vary no less than their magnitude, impact, or regularity.

Fourth, even though analysts disagree about the causal forces that generate globalization, most agree that globalization should be conceived as a relatively long-term process . The triad of deterritorialization, interconnectedness, and social acceleration hardly represents a sudden or recent event in contemporary social life. Globalization is a constitutive feature of the modern world, and modern history includes many examples of globalization (Giddens 1990). As we saw above, nineteenth-century thinkers captured at least some of its core features; the compression of territoriality composed an important element of their lived experience. Nonetheless, some contemporary theorists believe that globalization has taken a particularly intense form in recent decades, as innovations in communication, transportation, and information technologies (for example, computerization) have generated stunning new possibilities for simultaneity and instantaneousness (Harvey 1989). In this view, present-day intellectual interest in the problem of globalization can be linked directly to the emergence of new high-speed technologies that tend to minimize the significance of distance and heighten possibilities for deterritorialization and social interconnectedness. Although the intense sense of territorial compression experienced by so many of our contemporaries is surely reminiscent of the experiences of earlier generations, some contemporary writers nonetheless argue that it would be mistaken to obscure the countless ways in which ongoing transformations of the spatial and temporal contours of human experience are especially far-reaching. While our nineteenth-century predecessors understandably marveled at the railroad or the telegraph, a comparatively vast array of social activities is now being transformed by innovations that accelerate social activity and considerably deepen longstanding trends towards deterritorialization and social interconnectedness. To be sure, the impact of deterritorialization, social interconnectedness, and social acceleration are by no means universal or uniform: migrant workers engaging in traditional forms of low-wage agricultural labor in the fields of southern California, for example, probably operate in a different spatial and temporal context than the Internet entrepreneurs of San Francisco or Seattle. Distinct assumptions about space and time often coexist uneasily during a specific historical juncture (Gurvitch 1964). Nonetheless, the impact of recent technological innovations is profound, and even those who do not have a job directly affected by the new technology are shaped by it in innumerable ways as citizens and consumers (Eriksen 2001, 16).

Fifth, globalization should be understood as a multi-pronged process, since deterritorialization, social interconnectedness, and acceleration manifest themselves in many different (economic, political, and cultural) arenas of social activity. Although each facet of globalization is linked to the core components of globalization described above, each consists of a complex and relatively autonomous series of empirical developments, requiring careful examination in order to disclose the causal mechanisms specific to it (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999). Each manifestation of globalization also generates distinct conflicts and dislocations. For example, there is substantial empirical evidence that cross-border flows and exchanges (of goods, people, information, etc.), as well as the emergence of directly transnational forms of production by means of which a single commodity is manufactured simultaneously in distant corners of the globe, are gaining in prominence (Castells 1996). High-speed technologies and organizational approaches are employed by transnationally operating firms, the so-called “global players,” with great effectiveness. The emergence of “around-the-world, around-the-clock” financial markets, where major cross-border financial transactions are made in cyberspace at the blink of an eye, represents a familiar example of the economic face of globalization. Global financial markets also challenge traditional attempts by liberal democratic nation-states to rein in the activities of bankers, spawning understandable anxieties about the growing power and influence of financial markets over democratically elected representative institutions. In political life, globalization takes a distinct form, though the general trends towards deterritorialization, interconnectedness across borders, and the acceleration of social activity are fundamental here as well. Transnational movements, in which activists employ rapid-fire communication technologies to join forces across borders in combating ills that seem correspondingly transnational in scope (for example, the depletion of the ozone layer), offer an example of political globalization (Tarrow 2005). Another would be the tendency towards ambitious supranational forms of social and economic lawmaking and regulation, where individual nation-states cooperate to pursue regulation whose jurisdiction transcends national borders no less than the cross-border economic processes that undermine traditional modes of nation state-based regulation. Political scientists typically describe such supranational organizations (the European Union, for example, or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA) as important manifestations of political and legal globalization. The proliferation of supranational organizations has been no less conflict-laden than economic globalization, however. Critics insist that local, regional, and national forms of self-government are being supplanted by insufficiently democratic forms of global governance remote from the needs of ordinary citizens (Maus 2006; Streeck 2016). In contrast, defenders describe new forms of supranational legal and political decision as indispensable forerunners to more inclusive and advanced forms of self-government, even as they worry about existing democratic deficits and technocratic traits (Habermas 2015).

The wide-ranging impact of globalization on human existence means that it necessarily touches on many basic philosophical and political-theoretical questions. At a minimum, globalization suggests that academic philosophers in the rich countries of the West should pay closer attention to the neglected voices and intellectual traditions of peoples with whom our fate is intertwined in ever more intimate ways (Dallmayr 1998). In this section, however, we focus exclusively on the immediate challenges posed by globalization to normative political theory.

Western political theory has traditionally presupposed the existence of territorially bound communities, whose borders can be more or less neatly delineated from those of other communities. In this vein, the influential liberal political philosopher John Rawls described bounded communities whose fundamental structure consisted of “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” (Rawls 1993, 301). Although political and legal thinkers historically have exerted substantial energy in formulating defensible normative models of relations between states (Nardin and Mapel 1992), like Rawls they typically have relied on a clear delineation of “domestic” from “foreign” affairs. In addition, they have often argued that the domestic arena represents a normatively privileged site, since fundamental normative ideals and principles (for example, liberty or justice) are more likely to be successfully realized in the domestic arena than in relations among states. According to one influential strand within international relations theory, relations between states are more-or-less lawless. Since the achievement of justice or democracy, for example, presupposes an effective political sovereign, the lacuna of sovereignty at the global level means that justice and democracy are necessarily incomplete and probably unattainable there. In this conventional realist view of international politics, core features of the modern system of sovereign states relegate the pursuit of western political thought’s most noble normative goals primarily to the domestic arena (Mearsheimer 2003.) Significantly, some prominent mid-century proponents of international realism rejected this position’s deep hostility to international law and supranational political organization, in part because they presciently confronted challenges that we now typically associate with intensified globalization (Scheuerman 2011).

Globalization poses a fundamental challenge to each of these traditional assumptions. It is no longer self-evident that nation-states can be described as “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” in the context of intense deterritorialization and the spread and intensification of social relations across borders. The idea of a bounded community seems suspect given recent shifts in the spatio-temporal contours of human life. Even the most powerful and privileged political units are now subject to increasingly deterritorialized activities (for example, global financial markets or digitalized mass communication) over which they have limited control, and they find themselves nested in webs of social relations whose scope explodes the confines of national borders. Of course, in much of human history social relations have transcended existing political divides. However, globalization implies a profound quantitative increase in and intensification of social relations of this type. While attempts to offer a clear delineation of the “domestic” from the “foreign” probably made sense at an earlier juncture in history, this distinction no longer accords with core developmental trends in many arenas of social activity. As the possibility of a clear division between domestic and foreign affairs dissipates, the traditional tendency to picture the domestic arena as a privileged site for the realization of normative ideals and principles becomes problematic as well. As an empirical matter, the decay of the domestic-foreign frontier seems highly ambivalent, since it might easily pave the way for the decay of the more attractive attributes of domestic political life: as “foreign” affairs collapse inward onto “domestic” political life, the insufficiently lawful contours of the former make disturbing inroads onto the latter (Scheuerman 2004). As a normative matter, however, the disintegration of the domestic-foreign divide probably calls for us to consider, to a greater extent than ever before, how our fundamental normative commitments about political life can be effectively achieved on a global scale. If we take the principles of justice or democracy seriously, for example, it is no longer self-evident that the domestic arena is the exclusive or perhaps even main site for their pursuit, since domestic and foreign affairs are now deeply and irrevocably intermeshed. In a globalizing world, the lack of democracy or justice in the global setting necessarily impacts deeply on the pursuit of justice or democracy at home. Indeed, it may no longer be possible to achieve our normative ideals at home without undertaking to do so transnationally as well.

To claim, for example, that questions of distributive justice have no standing in the making of foreign affairs represents at best empirical naivete about economic globalization. At worst, it constitutes a disingenuous refusal to grapple with the fact that the material existence of those fortunate enough to live in the rich countries is inextricably tied to the material status of the vast majority of humanity residing in poor and underdeveloped regions. Growing material inequality spawned by economic globalization is linked to growing domestic material inequality in the rich democracies (Falk 1999; Pogge 2002). Similarly, in the context of global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer, a dogmatic insistence on the sanctity of national sovereignty risks constituting a cynical fig leaf for irresponsible activities whose impact extends well beyond the borders of those countries most directly responsible. Global warming and ozone-depletion cry out for ambitious forms of transnational cooperation and regulation, and the refusal by the rich democracies to accept this necessity implies a failure to take the process of globalization seriously when doing so conflicts with their immediate material interests. Although it might initially seem to be illustrative of clever Realpolitik on the part of the culpable nations to ward off strict cross-border environmental regulation, their stubbornness is probably short-sighted: global warming and ozone depletion will affect the children of Americans who drive gas-guzzling SUVs or use environmentally unsound air-conditioning as well as the future generations of South Africa or Afghanistan (Cerutti 2007). If we keep in mind that environmental degradation probably impacts negatively on democratic politics (for example, by undermining its legitimacy and stability), the failure to pursue effective transnational environmental regulation potentially undermines democracy at home as well as abroad.

Philosophers and political theorists have eagerly addressed the normative and political implications of our globalizing world. A lively debate about the possibility of achieving justice at the global level pits representatives of cosmopolitanism against myriad communitarians, nationalists, realists, and others who privilege the nation-state and moral, political, and social ties resting on it (Lieven 2020; Tamir 2019). In contrast, cosmopolitans tend to underscore our universal obligations to those who reside faraway and with whom we may share little in the way of language, custom, or culture, oftentimes arguing that claims to “justice at home” can and should be applied elsewhere as well (Beardsworth 2011; Beitz 1999; Caney 2006; Wallace-Brown & Held 2010). In this way, cosmopolitanism builds directly on the universalistic impulses of modern moral and political thought. Cosmopolitanism’s critics dispute the view that our obligations to foreigners possess the same status as those to members of particular local and national communities of which we remain very much a part. They by no means deny the need to redress global inequality, for example, but they often express skepticism in the face of cosmopolitanism’s tendency to defend significant legal and political reforms as necessary to address the inequities of a planet where millions of people a year die of starvation or curable diseases (Miller 2007; 2013; Nagel 2005). Nor do cosmopolitanism’s critics necessarily deny that the process of globalization is real, though some of them suggest that its impact has been grossly exaggerated (Kymlicka 1999; Nussbaum et al . 1996; Streeck 2016). Nonetheless, they doubt that humanity has achieved a rich or sufficiently articulated sense of a common fate such that far-reaching attempts to achieve greater global justice (for example, substantial redistribution from the rich to poor) could prove successful. Cosmopolitans not only counter with a flurry of universalist and egalitarian moral arguments, but they also accuse their opponents of obscuring the threat posed by globalization to the particular forms of national community whose ethical primacy communitarians, nationalists, and others endorse. From the cosmopolitan perspective, the tendency to favor moral and political obligations to fellow members of the nation-state represents a misguided and increasingly reactionary nostalgia for a rapidly decaying constellation of political practices and institutions.

A similar divide characterizes the ongoing debate about the prospects of democratic institutions at the global level. In a cosmopolitan mode, Daniele Archibugi (2008) and the late David Held (1995) have argued that globalization requires the extension of liberal democratic institutions (including the rule of law and elected representative institutions) to the transnational level. Nation state-based liberal democracy is poorly equipped to deal with deleterious side effects of present-day globalization such as ozone depletion or burgeoning material inequality. In addition, a growing array of genuinely transnational forms of activity calls out for correspondingly transnational modes of liberal democratic decision-making. According to this model, “local” or “national” matters should remain under the auspices of existing liberal democratic institutions. But in those areas where deterritorialization and social interconnectedness across national borders are especially striking, new transnational institutions (for example, cross-border referenda), along with a dramatic strengthening and further democratization of existing forms of supranational authority (in particular, the United Nations), are necessary if we are to assure that popular sovereignty remains an effective principle. In the same spirit, cosmopolitans debate whether a loose system of global “governance” suffices, or instead cosmopolitan ideals require something along the lines of a global “government” or state (Cabrera 2011; Scheuerman 2014). Jürgen Habermas, a prominent cosmopolitan-minded theorist, has tried to formulate a defense of the European Union that conceives of it as a key stepping stone towards supranational democracy. If the EU is to help succeed in salvaging the principle of popular sovereignty in a world where the decay of nation state-based democracy makes democracy vulnerable, the EU will need to strengthen its elected representative organs and better guarantee the civil, political, and social and economic rights of all Europeans (Habermas 2001, 58–113; 2009). Representing a novel form of postnational constitutionalism, it potentially offers some broader lessons for those hoping to save democratic constitutionalism under novel global conditions. Despite dire threats to the EU posed by nationalist and populist movements, Habermas and other cosmopolitan-minded intellectuals believe that it can be effectively reformed and preserved (Habermas 2012).

In opposition to Archibugi, Held, Habermas, and other cosmopolitans, skeptics underscore the purportedly utopian character of such proposals, arguing that democratic politics presupposes deep feelings of trust, commitment, and belonging that remain uncommon at the postnational and global levels. Largely non-voluntary commonalities of belief, history, and custom compose necessary preconditions of any viable democracy, and since these commonalities are missing beyond the sphere of the nation-state, global or cosmopolitan democracy is doomed to fail (Archibugi, Held, and Koehler 1998; Lieven 2020). Critics inspired by realist international theory argue that cosmopolitanism obscures the fundamentally pluralistic, dynamic, and conflictual nature of political life on our divided planet. Notwithstanding its pacific self-understanding, cosmopolitan democracy inadvertently opens the door to new and even more horrible forms of political violence. Cosmpolitanism’s universalistic normative discourse not only ignores the harsh and unavoidably agonistic character of political life, but it also tends to serve as a convenient ideological cloak for terrible wars waged by political blocs no less self-interested than the traditional nation state (Zolo 1997, 24).

Ongoing political developments suggest that such debates are of more than narrow scholarly interest. Until recently, some of globalization’s key prongs seemed destined to transform human affairs in seemingly permanent ways: economic globalization, as well as the growth of a panoply of international and global political and legal institutions, continued to transpire at a rapid rate. Such institutional developments, it should be noted, were interpreted by some cosmopolitan theorists as broadly corroborating their overall normative aspirations. With the resurgence of nationalist and populist political movements, many of which diffusely (and sometimes misleadingly) target elements of globalization, globalization’s future prospects seem increasingly uncertain. For example, with powerful political leaders regularly making disdainful remarks about the UN and EU, it seems unclear whether one of globalization’s most striking features, i.e., enhanced political and legal decision-making “beyond the nation state,” will continue unabated. Tragically perhaps, the failure to manage economic globalization so as to minimize avoidable inequalities and injustices has opened the door to a nationalist and populist backlash, with many people now ready to embrace politicians and movements promising to push back against “free trade,” relatively porous borders (for migrants and refugees), and other manifestations of globalization (Stiglitz 2018). Even if it seems unlikely that nationalists or populists can succeed in fully halting, let alone reversing, structural trends towards deterritorialization, intensified interconnectedness, and social acceleration, they may manage to reshape them in ways that cosmopolitans are likely to find alarming. Whether or not nationalists and populists can successfully respond to many fundamental global challenges (e.g., climate change or nuclear proliferation), however, remains far less likely.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture , by Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton. This is the Student Companion Site at wiley.com

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Globalization.

Globalization is a term used to describe the increasing connectedness and interdependence of world cultures and economies.

Anthropology, Sociology, Social Studies, Civics, Economics

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Globalization is a term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place. Globalization also captures in its scope the economic and social changes that have come about as a result. It may be pictured as the threads of an immense spider web formed over millennia, with the number and reach of these threads increasing over time. People, money, material goods, ideas, and even disease and devastation have traveled these silken strands, and have done so in greater numbers and with greater speed than ever in the present age. When did globalization begin? The Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes across China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean used between 50 B.C.E. and 250 C.E., is perhaps the most well-known early example of exchanging ideas, products, and customs. As with future globalizing booms, new technologies played a key role in the Silk Road trade. Advances in metallurgy led to the creation of coins; advances in transportation led to the building of roads connecting the major empires of the day; and increased agricultural production meant more food could be trafficked between locales. Along with Chinese silk, Roman glass, and Arabian spices, ideas such as Buddhist beliefs and the secrets of paper-making also spread via these tendrils of trade. Unquestionably, these types of exchanges were accelerated in the Age of Exploration, when European explorers seeking new sea routes to the spices and silks of Asia bumped into the Americas instead. Again, technology played an important role in the maritime trade routes that flourished between old and newly discovered continents. New ship designs and the creation of the magnetic compass were key to the explorers’ successes. Trade and idea exchange now extended to a previously unconnected part of the world, where ships carrying plants, animals, and Spanish silver between the Old World and the New also carried Christian missionaries. The web of globalization continued to spin out through the Age of Revolution, when ideas about liberty , equality , and fraternity spread like fire from America to France to Latin America and beyond. It rode the waves of industrialization , colonization , and war through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, powered by the invention of factories, railways, steamboats, cars, and planes. With the Information Age, globalization went into overdrive. Advances in computer and communications technology launched a new global era and redefined what it meant to be “connected.” Modern communications satellites meant the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo could be watched in the United States for the first time. The World Wide Web and the Internet allowed someone in Germany to read about a breaking news story in Bolivia in real time. Someone wishing to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to London, England, could do so in hours rather than the week or more it would have taken a hundred years ago. This digital revolution massively impacted economies across the world as well: they became more information-based and more interdependent. In the modern era, economic success or failure at one focal point of the global web can be felt in every major world economy. The benefits and disadvantages of globalization are the subject of ongoing debate. The downside to globalization can be seen in the increased risk for the transmission of diseases like ebola or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), or in the kind of environmental harm that scientist Paul R. Furumo has studied in microcosm in palm oil plantations in the tropics. Globalization has of course led to great good, too. Richer nations now can—and do—come to the aid of poorer nations in crisis. Increasing diversity in many countries has meant more opportunity to learn about and celebrate other cultures. The sense that there is a global village, a worldwide “us,” has emerged.

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globalization

globalization , integration of the world’s economies, politics, and cultures. German-born American economist Theodore Levitt has been credited with having coined the term globalization in a 1983 article titled “The Globalization of Markets.” The phenomenon is widely considered to have begun in the 19th century following the advent of the Industrial Revolution , but some scholars date it more specifically to about 1870, when exports became a much more significant share of some countries’ gross domestic product (GDP). Its continued escalation is largely attributable to the development of new technologies—particularly in the fields of communication and transportation—and to the adoption of liberal trade policies by countries around the world.

Social scientists have identified the central aspects of globalization as interconnection, intensification, time-space distanciation (conditions that allow time and space to be organized in a manner that connects presence and absence), supraterritoriality, time-space compression, action at a distance, and accelerating interdependence. Modern analysts also conceive of globalization as a long-term process of deterritorialization—that is, of social activities (economic, political, and cultural) occurring without regard for geographic location. Thus, globalization can be defined as the stretching of economic, political, and social relationships in space and time. A manufacturer assembling a product for a distant market , a country submitting to international law , and a language adopting a foreign loanword are all examples of globalization.

Of course history is filled with such occurrences: Chinese artisans once wove silk bound for the Roman Empire ( see Silk Road ); kingdoms in western Europe honoured dictates of the Roman Catholic Church ; and English adopted many Norman French words in the centuries after the Battle of Hastings . These interactions and others laid the groundwork for globalization and are now recognized by historians and economists as important predecessors of the modern phenomenon. Analysts have labeled the 15th to 18th century as a period of “proto-globalization,” when European explorers established maritime trade routes across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and encountered new lands. Integration prior to this time has been characterized as “archaic globalization.”

What distinguishes the process of modern globalization from those forms of global integration that preceded it are its pace and extent. According to some academics, three distinct eras of modern globalization can be identified, each of them marked by points of sudden acceleration in international interaction. Under this scheme, the “first globalization” era refers to the period between approximately 1870 and 1914, during which new transportation and communication technology decreased or eliminated many of the drawbacks to distance. The “second globalization” era is said to have lasted from roughly 1944 to 1971, a period in which an international monetary system based on the value of the U.S. dollar facilitated a new level of trade between capitalist countries. And the “third globalization” era is thought to have begun with the revolutions of 1989–90, which opened the communist Eastern bloc to the flow of capital and coincided with the creation of the World Wide Web . Some scholars argue that a new period of globalization, the “fourth globalization,” is underway, but there is little consensus on when this era began or whether it is truly distinct enough to merit its own designation.

New levels of interconnectedness fostered by globalization are credited for numerous benefits to humanity. The spread of industrial technology and the resulting increase in productivity have contributed to a reduction in the percentage of the world’s population living in poverty. The sharing of medical knowledge has dramatically decreased the incidence of once-feared diseases and even eliminated smallpox. And economic interdependence among countries discourages war between them.

However, the implementation of globalization has been much criticized, leading to the development of the anti-globalization movement. Opponents of globalization—or at least, globalization in its present form ( see neoliberal globalization )—represent a variety of interests on both the political left and right. Labour unions disdain multinational companies’ ability to move their operations to countries with cheaper labour; Indigenous peoples rue the difficulty of maintaining their traditions; and leftists object to the neoliberal character of the new world economy, arguing that the capitalist logic on which they contend globalization is based leads to asymmetrical power relations (both internationally and domestically) and transforms every aspect of life into a commodity. Right-wing critics of globalization believe that it threatens both national economies and national identity. They advocate national control of a country’s economy and rigidly restricted immigration.

Globalization has also produced effects that are more universally worrisome. Expanded transportation networks facilitate not only increased trade but also the spread of diseases. Undesirable trade, such as human trafficking and poaching, has flourished alongside legitimate commerce. Moreover, the pollution generated by the world’s modernization has resulted in global warming and climate change , threatening Earth’s very habitability.

Whether globalization will adapt to these problems remains to be seen, but it is already changing again. For example, globalization began in the 19th century with an explosion in exports, but, even before the COVID-19 pandemic that swept through the world in 2020 resulted in global lockdowns, trade as a share of many countries’ GDP had fallen. It can be argued that the global supply chains today rely more on knowledge than on labour . And services now constitute a larger share of the global economy than goods. A “fourth globalization” might indeed be here—or at least on the way.

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Globalization

Essays on Globalization

Hook examples for globalization essays, "the global village" metaphor hook.

"In the age of globalization, our world has transformed into a 'global village.' Explore the implications of this metaphor and how it has reshaped our understanding of interconnectedness and cultural exchange."

The Impact of Digital Connectivity Hook

"In an era where a single tweet can reach millions, digital connectivity has revolutionized globalization. Delve into the profound impact of the internet, social media, and technology on global interactions."

The Paradox of Local vs. Global Hook

"Globalization blurs the lines between local and global identities. Analyze the paradox of preserving cultural heritage while embracing the globalized world and how this tension shapes our societies."

The Global Marketplace Hook

"Globalization has ushered in an era of unprecedented trade and economic interconnectedness. Explore the dynamics of the global marketplace, from multinational corporations to supply chains spanning continents."

Cultural Fusion and Identity Hook

"Globalization has led to a melting pot of cultures, but what happens to cultural identities in the process? Investigate how globalization impacts the preservation and evolution of cultural identities."

The Challenges of Globalization Hook

"While globalization offers numerous benefits, it also presents challenges. Examine issues such as income inequality, cultural homogenization, and environmental concerns that arise in a globalized world."

The Future of Globalization Hook

"As we stand on the brink of a globalized future, what can we expect? Join me in exploring the potential trajectories of globalization, from its impact on politics to the role of emerging technologies."

The Best Globalization Essay Topics

• The Impact of Globalization on Local Cultures: Integration or Erasure?
• The Impact of Globalization on Cultural Identity in Anthropological Studies
• Globalization and Economic Inequality: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor
• The Role of Technology in Advancing Globalization and Its Social Implications
• Environmental Consequences of Globalization: Challenges and Sustainable Solutions
• Analyzing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Globalization
• The Influence of Globalization on Education and Cross-Cultural Exchanges
• Global Political Dynamics: How Globalization Affects Sovereignty and Governance
• Globalization and Health: The Spread of Diseases and Global Health Initiatives
• Consumer Culture and Globalization: The Homogenization of Global Markets

Globalization: a Double-edged Sword

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Globalization and The Rise of Madonal

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Good and Bad Impact of Globalization

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Globalization's Theories and Effects in The Modern World

The effects of globalization on health and medicine, a study on globalization and its various sides, overview of five articles about globalization, globalization: two sides of the arguments both for and against, globalization and its positive and negative sides for india, the advantages and disadvantages of the globalization process based on real-life examples, criticism and controversial benefits of globalization, globalization: importance of english nowadays, the impact of globalization, nationalism and protectionism on india, an overview of the overall impact of globalization, research of effects of globalization on the media in the world, globalisation as an economical, political and cultural process, pro globalist and anti globalist view from developed country perspective, how global issues impact individual states, electronic commerce in the globalization era, the effect of globalization and americanization on mass media, components of globalization: concept sociocultural and social globalizations, how the impact of globalization on illicit drug trafficking has affected international security, discussion of whether globalization is good or bad for the indian economy.

1. Halliday, T. C., & Osinsky, P. (2006). Globalization of law. Annu. Rev. Sociol., 32, 447-470. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123136) 2. Fischer, S. (2003). Globalization and its challenges. American Economic Review, 93(2), 1-30. (https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/000282803321946750) 3. Lang, M. (2006). Globalization and its history. The Journal of Modern History, 78(4), 899-931. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/511251?journalCode=jmh) 4. Spring, J. (2008). Research on globalization and education. Review of educational research, 78(2), 330-363. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0034654308317846?journalCode=rera) 5. Scott, A., & Storper, M. (2003). Regions, globalization, development. Regional studies, 37(6-7), 579-593. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0034340032000108697a) 6. Jameson, F. (1998). Notes on globalization as a philosophical issue. In The cultures of globalization (pp. 54-78). Duke University Press. (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822378426-005/html?lang=de) 7. Frankel, J. A. (2003). The environment and globalization. (https://www.nber.org/papers/w10090) 8. Teeple, G. (2000). What is globalization?. Globalization and its discontents, 9-23. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780333981610_2)

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• Stereotypes
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Essay on Importance of Globalization

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Globalization in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Globalization

Understanding globalization.

Globalization refers to the integration of countries and people worldwide. It involves sharing ideas, products, and cultural aspects across borders.

Benefits of Globalization

Globalization is crucial as it promotes international trade, leading to economic growth. It also encourages cultural exchange, fostering global harmony.

Globalization and Technology

Globalization has been boosted by advancements in technology, making communication and transportation easier and faster.

In essence, globalization is vital for economic and cultural progress. It bridges gaps among nations, promoting peace and prosperity.

250 Words Essay on Importance of Globalization

Globalization and the economy.

Globalization has played a pivotal role in fostering economic growth. It has allowed countries to partake in international trade, leading to the expansion of market frontiers. Globalization encourages the free movement of goods, services, and labor, promoting economies of scale and efficient allocation of resources.

Cultural Exchange and Globalization

Globalization has also spurred cultural exchange. Through the diffusion of ideas, languages, and cultural practices, societies have become more diverse and enriched. It has led to a greater understanding and tolerance of different cultures, fostering global unity.

The advent of technology has accelerated globalization. Information technology, in particular, has made it possible to instantaneously communicate and conduct business, regardless of geographical distance. This has led to the creation of a global village, further enhancing economic and cultural ties.

The Flipside of Globalization

Despite its benefits, globalization has its drawbacks. It has often been criticized for widening the wealth gap and promoting cultural homogenization. Therefore, it’s essential to strike a balance, harnessing the advantages of globalization while mitigating its potential downsides.

In conclusion, globalization is a double-edged sword. While it has the potential to bring about economic prosperity and cultural exchange, it also carries the risk of exacerbating income inequality and cultural erosion. Therefore, a balanced approach towards globalization is crucial for sustainable development.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Globalization

Introduction to globalization, the economic impact of globalization.

Globalization has a profound impact on the economic sphere. It has led to the opening up of world trade, development of advanced means of communication, internationalization of financial markets, growing importance of MNCs, population migrations, and more interconnected markets. This has allowed for the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor, leading to economies of scale and fostering economic growth.

Globalization and Cultural Exchange

Culture is another area profoundly impacted by globalization. The worldwide spread of ideas, languages, or popular culture happens through globalization. It has led to the diffusion of cultural practices, leading to a global culture. However, it’s a double-edged sword as it also risks the obliteration of local cultures and traditions.

Globalization and the Environment

The technological revolution is both a driver and a product of globalization. The rapid spread of technology and information has not only made globalization possible, but it is also continuously accelerated by it. The internet, for instance, has broken down geographical barriers, allowing instant communication and access to information across the globe.

Globalization and Politics

Globalization has reshaped political landscapes worldwide. It has led to the rise of international political institutions like the UN, EU, and WTO, which govern international relations. While these organizations foster cooperation and peace, they also raise questions about national sovereignty.

Conclusion: The Dual Nature of Globalization

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Is globalization an engine of economic development?

All people living in today's world have experienced some of the benefits of globalization: the expansion of foreign trade has meant that vaccines and antibiotics produced in a handful of countries have been widely used all over the world to eradicate diseases and treat deadly infections. Since 1900, life expectancy has increased in every country in the world , and global average life expectancy has more than doubled .

Globalization has also been a key driver of unprecedented economic growth and as a result, we now live in a world with much less poverty .

Yet these achievements are the product of multiple forces, and globalization is only one of them. The increasing potential of governments to collect revenues and redistribute resources through social transfers has been another important factor contributing to improved standards of living around the world. Neither free market capitalism nor social democracy alone has been responsible for economic development. On the contrary, they often work together.

In this blog post, we discuss in more detail the evidence behind these claims.

The rise of globalization

International trade has been part of the world economy for thousands of years . Despite this long history, the importance of foreign trade was modest until the beginning of the 19th century—the sum of worldwide exports and imports never exceeded 10% of global output before 1800 .

Then around 1820 things started to change quickly. Around that time, technological advances and political liberalism triggered what we know today as the 'first wave of globalization'.

This first wave of globalization came to an end with the beginning of the First World War, when the decline of liberalism and the rise of nationalism led to a collapse in international trade. But this was temporary and after the Second World War, trade started growing again. This second wave of globalization, which continues today, has seen international trade grow faster than ever before. Today, around 60% of all goods and services produced in the world are shipped across country borders. (In our entry on International Trade you find more details regarding the particular features that characterize the first and second waves of globalization.)

The chart here shows the remarkable growth of foreign trade since 1800. The series shows the value of world exports in constant prices—world exports have been indexed, so that values are relative to the value of exports in the year 1913.

The broad trend in this chart is striking: Trade followed an exponential path. Other metrics of trade, such as the share of imports and exports in global output , tell the same story.

In just a few generations, globalization completely changed the world economy.

The correlation between globalization, economic growth and poverty reductions

In the period in which international trade expanded, the average world income increased substantially and the share of the population living in extreme poverty went down continuously.

GDP per capita is a common metric used for measuring national average incomes. By this measure, average incomes followed a similar growth pattern to international trade. For thousands of years, global GDP per capita had a negligible growth rate: technological progress in the preindustrial world produced people rather than prosperity . Over the course of the 19th century, however, alongside the first wave of globalization, this changed substantially. In this period, economic growth started accelerating and global GDP per capita has been growing constantly over the last two centuries—with the exception of lower growth rates during the years between the two world wars. (You can read more about these trends in our entry on Economic Growth .)

Regarding extreme poverty, the available evidence shows that up until 1800, the vast majority of people around the world lived in extreme deprivation , with only a tiny elite enjoying higher standards of living. In the 19th century we began making progress and the share of people living in extreme poverty started to slowly decline. This trend is shown in the chart here. As we can see, today, two hundred years later, the share of people living in extreme poverty is less than 10%. This is an achievement that would have been unthinkable to our ancestors. 1

The stark trend in the incidence of poverty is particularly remarkable if we consider that the world population increased 7-fold over the same period. In a world without economic growth, such an increase in the population would have resulted in less and less consumption for everyone. And yet, as the chart shows if you switch to the 'absolute' view, the exact opposite happened: in a time of unprecedented population growth, we managed to lift more and more people out of poverty.

Living with less than 1.90 dollars per day is difficult by any standard—the term 'extreme poverty' is appropriate. However, recent estimates show that no matter what global poverty line you choose, the share of people below that poverty line has declined . (In our entry on Global Extreme Poverty you can find more evidence supporting this important historical achievement.)

The link between globalization and absolute poverty

The fact that trade and average incomes followed similar upward trajectories in a period of unprecedented poverty reduction is of course not proof of a causal relationship. However, both evidence and theory suggest that what we observe is more than an accidental correlation.

Trade facilitates efficiency gains that are materialized in aggregate economic growth. From a conceptual point of view, international trade contributes to economic growth by allowing nations to specialize, in order to produce goods that they are relatively efficient at producing, while importing other goods. There is substantial empirical evidence backing this causal mechanism .

If trade leads to growth in average incomes, what does this mean for poverty? In a much-cited 2002 academic article, David Dollar and Aart Kraay empirically showed that on average, the income of the poorest grew one-for-one with average national incomes over the last four decades of the 20th century. 2 This means that trade has helped raise the incomes of the poor as much as it has helped raise average incomes. More recent articles have confirmed the original findings from Dollar and Kraay. 3

When taken together, the evidence thus tells us that globalization has contributed to reducing poverty around the world.

The link between globalization and inequality

That globalization is good for the poor is a statement that is true on average . In some countries and in some periods the poor did better than average, and sometimes they did worse.

Looking at the long-run average effect is very helpful to form an opinion regarding broad trends. However, these broad trends are not necessarily informative about how trade has affected the distribution of incomes generally; nor about how trade has affected specific groups of people in specific periods.

The same economic principles that suggest we should lend serious consideration to the efficiency gains from trade, suggest that we should do likewise for the distributional consequences from trade. If globalization generates growth by allowing countries to specialize in the production of goods that intensively use locally abundant resources, it is natural to expect that differences in the way resources are endowed will translate into differences in the way benefits are reaped.

If we take a look at the data, we observe that the process of globalization and growth that led to historical achievements in poverty reductions went along with a substantial increase in global income inequality .

The chart shows this by comparing the global income distribution at three points in time: 1800, 1975, and 2015. We can see that the world today is both much richer and more unequal than it was in 1800.

There are two forces that can drive global income inequality : within-country differences in incomes, and between-country differences in incomes. Which of the two is driving the trend we observe in this chart? The evidence suggests that it is the latter—global inequality increased in the period 1800-1975 because the countries that industrialized earlier grew faster.

In 1800, only a few countries had achieved economic growth while the majority of the world still lived in poverty. In the following century, more and more countries achieved sustained economic growth, and the global income distribution became much more unequal: there was a clear divergence between early-industrialized countries (where extreme forms of poverty were virtually eradicated) and the rest of the world. In the following decades and up until today, early-industrialized countries have continued growing, but the biggest changes have taken place at the bottom of the distribution. Today, global income inequality is lower than it was in 1975. But still, despite the ‘catch-up growth’ in recent decades, our world today is both much richer and more unequal than it was in 1800.

So, what does the data tell us about globalization? Over the last century, the gains from international trade were substantial and generally equally distributed within countries, but global inequality increased because for a long period early-industrialized countries had larger gains to distribute among their citizens.

The distribution of the gains from trade

The above conclusion that globalization has not had substantial effects on global inequality may seem paradoxical to some people—there is substantial evidence of growing inequality in many countries, including countries that have vehemently pursued trade liberalization. A notable case in point is the US, where income inequality has been on the rise in the last four decades, with incomes for the bottom 10% growing much more slowly than incomes for the top 10% . (You can read more about these within-country trends in our entry on Income Inequality .)

How can we reconcile these two empirical facts? In a recent article, Elhanan Helpman provides an answer informed by a meta-analysis of the available evidence: factors such as automation, technological changes, and market frictions, have contributed to the rise of inequality more than growth in international trade has. 4

If this is the case, then why has the view that globalization is bad for the working class captured the political debate in rich countries? Part of the answer has to do with the fact that people are misinformed about the evidence. But another important reason is that, while globalization may not have been the prime cause of growing inequality within many rich countries, it remains true that there are specific groups of people who have not reaped many of the benefits from globalization in recent years.

Daniel Trefler published a paper in 2004 showing that the 1989 free trade agreement between the US and Canada temporarily increased (for about three years) the level of unemployment in Canada. 5 And David Autor and colleagues published another much cited article in 2013 showing that imports from China had diverging effects on employment across various geographical zones in the US, with employment declining more in zones where industries were more exposed to import competition from China. 6

These effects on specific groups are real and need to be taken into account, even if they do not imply that ‘globalization is bad for the poor’. Public policies should protect and compensate workers whose earnings are adversely affected by globalization. And as a matter of fact, public policies in rich countries have done this to some degree in the past. As painful as job losses are for the affected workers, it is thanks to unemployment benefits and other safety-net policies that we do not observe unemployment leading to widespread extreme poverty in rich countries.

Which way forward?

Has globalization been an engine of economic development? The answer is yes. Globalization has had a positive effect on economic growth, contributing to rising living standards and the reduction of extreme poverty across the world.

Can we conclude from this that we should strive for a ‘hyper-globalized’ world economy in which there is completely free trade with no room for public policy and regulation? The answer is no.

The point is that the worldwide historical achievements that we can attribute to globalization are not independent of other factors, including the potential of governments to redistribute resources. Indeed, as the last chart here shows, the process of globalization that we have experienced in the last couple of centuries took place at the same time as governments increased their potential for taxing and redirecting resources through public policies, particularly social transfers.

How much integration in global markets would be optimal? I would be skeptical of anyone who offers a definitive answer. But it seems unlikely that the optimal degree of integration is either of the two extremes—neither ‘hyper-protectionism’ nor ‘hyper-globalization’ is likely to be the answer.

Policies aimed at liberalizing trade, and policies aimed at providing social safety nets, are often advocated by different groups, and it is common for these groups to argue that they are in conflict. But both economic theory and the empirical evidence from the successful fight against extreme poverty suggests this is a mistake: globalization and social policy should be treated as complements rather than substitutes.

The data in the chart here measures ‘extreme poverty’ as defined by the World Bank; people are considered to live in extreme poverty if they have to get by with less than 1.90 ‘international dollars’ per day. International dollars are a hypothetical currency that corrects incomes for differences in price levels in different countries as well as for inflation (explained by us here ).

Dollar, David, and Aart Kraay. "Growth is Good for the Poor." Journal of economic growth 7.3 (2002): 195-225.

See, for example, Dollar and Kraay (2004), "Trade, growth, and poverty." The Economic Journal 114.493 (2004) ; and Dollar, Kleineberg and Kraay (2014), "Growth, inequality, and social welfare : cross-country evidence." Policy Research Working Paper.

Helpman, Elhanan. Globalization and Wage Inequality. No. w22944. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016.

Trefler, Daniel. "The long and short of the Canada-US free trade agreement." The American Economic Review 94.4 (2004): 870-895.

David, H., David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson. "The China syndrome: Local labor market effects of import competition in the United States." The American Economic Review 103.6 (2013): 2121-2168.

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Essay on Globalization for Students and Children

500+ words essay on globalization.

Globalization refers to integration between people, companies, and governments. Most noteworthy, this integration occurs on a global scale. Furthermore, it is the process of expanding the business all over the world. In Globalization, many businesses expand globally and assume an international image. Consequently, there is a requirement for huge investment to develop international companies.

How Globalization Came into Existence?

First of all, people have been trading goods since civilization began. In the 1st century BC, there was the transportation of goods from China to Europe. The goods transportation took place along the Silk Road. The Silk Road route was very long in distance. This was a remarkable development in the history of Globalization. This is because, for the first time ever, goods were sold across continents.

Globalization kept on growing gradually since 1st BC. Another significant development took place in the 7th century AD. This was the time when the religion of Islam spread. Most noteworthy, Arab merchants led to a rapid expansion of international trade . By the 9th century, there was the domination of Muslim traders on international trade. Furthermore, the focus of trade at this time was spices.

True Global trade began in the Age of Discovery in the 15th century. The Eastern and Western continents were connected by European merchants. There was the discovery of America in this period. Consequently, global trade reached America from Europe.

From the 19th century, there was a domination of Great Britain all over the world. There was a rapid spread of international trade. The British developed powerful ships and trains. Consequently, the speed of transportation greatly increased. The rate of production of goods also significantly increased. Communication also got faster which was better for Global trade .

Finally, in 20th and 21st -Century Globalization took its ultimate form. Above all, the development of technology and the internet took place. This was a massive aid for Globalization. Hence, E-commerce plays a huge role in Globalization.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Impact of Globalization

First of all, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) increases at a great rate. This certainly is a huge contribution of Globalization. Due to FDI, there is industrial development. Furthermore, there is the growth of global companies. Also, many third world countries would also benefit from FDI.

Technological Innovation is another notable contribution of Globalization. Most noteworthy, there is a huge emphasis on technology development in Globalization. Furthermore, there is also technology transfer due to Globalization. The technology would certainly benefit the common people.

The quality of products improves due to Globalization. This is because manufacturers try to make products of high-quality. This is due to the pressure of intense competition. If the product is inferior, people can easily switch to another high-quality product.

To sum it up, Globalization is a very visible phenomenon currently. Most noteworthy, it is continuously increasing. Above all, it is a great blessing to trade. This is because it brings a lot of economic and social benefits to it.

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Article contents

Globalization and education.

• Liz Jackson Liz Jackson University of Hong Kong
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.52
• Published online: 26 October 2016

Few would deny that processes of globalization have impacted education around the world in many important ways. Yet the term “globalization” is relatively new, and its meaning or nature, conceptualization, and impact remain essentially contested within the educational research community. There is no global consensus on the exact time period of its occurrence or its most significant shaping processes, from those who focus on its social and cultural framings to those that hold global political-economic systems or transnational social actors as most influential. Intersecting questions also arise regarding whether its influence on human communities and the world should be conceived of as mostly good or mostly bad, which have significant implications for debates regarding the relationship between globalization and education. Competing understandings of globalization also undergird diverse methodologies and perspectives in expanding fields of research into the relationship between education and globalization.

There are many ways to frame the relationship of globalization and education. Scholars often pursue the topic by examining globalization’s perceived impact on education, as in many cases global convergence around educational policies, practices, and values has been observed in the early 21st century. Yet educational borrowing and transferal remains unstraightforward in practice, as educational and cultural differences across social contexts remain, while ultimate ends of education (such as math competencies versus moral cultivation) are essentially contested. Clearly, specificity is important to understand globalization in relation to education. As with globalization generally, globalization in education cannot be merely described as harmful or beneficial, but depends on one’s position, perspective, values, and priorities.

Education and educators’ impacts on globalization also remain a worthwhile focus of exploration in research and theorization. Educators do not merely react to globalization and related processes, but purposefully interact with them, as they prepare their students to respond to challenges and opportunities posed by processes associated with globalization. As cultural and political-economic considerations remain crucial in understanding globalization and education, positionality and research ethics and reflexivity remain important research concerns, to understand globalization not just as homogeneity or oppressive top-down features, but as complex and dynamic local and global intersections of people, ideas, and goods, with unclear impacts in the future.

• globalization
• economic integration
• education borrowing
• global studies in education
• comparative education
• education development

Few would deny that processes of globalization have impacted education around the world in many important ways. Yet the term “globalization” is relatively new, and its meaning or nature, conceptualization, and impact remain essentially contested within the educational research community. Competing understandings of globalization undergird diverse methodologies and perspectives in the expanding web of fields researching the relationship between education and globalization examined below. The area of educational research which exploded at the turn of the 21st century requires a holistic view. Rather than take sides within this contentious field, it is useful to examine major debates and trends, and indicate where readers can learn more about particular specialist areas within the field and other relevant strands of research.

The first part below considers the development of the theorization and conceptualization of globalization and debates about its impact that are relevant to education. The next section examines the relationship between education and globalization as explored by the educational research community. There are many ways to frame the relationship between globalization and education. First explored here is the way that globalization can be seen to impact education, as global processes and practices have been observed to influence many educational systems’ policies and structures; values and ideals; pedagogy; curriculum and assessment; as well as broader conceptualizations of teacher and learner, and the good life. However, there is also a push in the other direction—through global citizenship education, education for sustainable development, and related trends—to understand education and educators as shapers of globalization, so these views are also explored here. The last section highlights relevant research directions.

The Emergence of Globalization(s)

At the broadest level, globalization can be defined as a process or condition of the cultural, political, economic, and technological meeting and mixing of people, ideas, and resources, across local, national, and regional borders, which has been largely perceived to have increased in intensity and scale during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, there is no global consensus on the exact time period of its occurrence, or its most significant shaping processes, from social and cultural framings to those that hold global political-economic systems or transnational social actors as most influential. Intersecting questions also arise regarding whether its influence on human communities and the world should be conceived as mostly good or mostly bad, which have clear and significant implications for understanding debates regarding the relationship between globalization and education.

Conceptualizing Globalization

Globalization is a relatively recent concept in scholarly research, becoming popular in public, academic, and educational discourse only in the 1980s. However, many leading scholars of globalization have argued that the major causes or shapers of globalization, particularly the movement and mixing of elements beyond a local or national level, is at least many centuries old; others frame globalization as representing processes inherent to the human experience, within a 5,000–10,000-year time frame. 1 Conceptualizations of globalization have typically highlighted cultural, political-economic, and/or technological aspects of these processes, with different researchers emphasizing and framing the relationships among these different aspects in diverse ways in their theories.

Cultural framings: Emphasizing the cultural rather than economic or political aspects of globalization, Roland Robertson pinpointed the occurrence of globalization as part of the process of modernity in Europe (though clearly similar processes were occurring in many parts of the world), particularly a growing mutual recognition among nationality-based communities. 2 As people began identifying with larger groups, beyond their family, clan, or tribe, “relativization” took place, as people saw others in respective outside communities similarly developing national or national-like identities. 3 Through identifying their own societies as akin to those of outsiders, people began measuring their cultural and political orders according to a broader, international schema, and opening their eyes to transnational inspirations for internal social change.

Upon mutual recognition of nations, kingdoms, and the like as larger communities that do not include all of humanity, “emulation” stemming from comparison of the local to the external was often a next step. 4 While most people and communities resisted, dismissed, or denied the possibility of a global human collectivity, they nonetheless compared their own cultures and lives with those beyond their borders. Many world leaders across Eurasia looked at other “civilizations” with curiosity, and began increasing intercultural and international interactions to benefit from cultural mixing, through trade, translation of knowledge, and more. With emulation and relativization also came a sense of a global standard of values, for goods and resources, and for the behavior and organization of individuals and groups in societies, though ethnocentrism and xenophobia was also often a part of such “global” comparison. 5

Political-economic framings: In political theory and popular understanding, nationalism has been a universalizing discourse in the modern era, wherein individuals around the world have been understood to belong to and identify primarily with largely mutually exclusive national or nation-state “imagined communities.” 6 In this context, appreciation for and extensive investigation of extranational and international politics and globalization were precluded for a long time in part due to the power of nationalistic approaches. However, along with the rise historically of nationalist and patriotic political discourse, theories of cosmopolitanism also emerged. Modern cosmopolitanism as a concept unfolded particularly in the liberalism of Immanuel Kant, who argued for a spirit of “world citizenship” toward “perpetual peace,” wherein people recognize themselves as citizens of the world. 7 Martha Nussbaum locates cosmopolitanism’s roots in the more distant past, however, observing Diogenes the Cynic (ca. 404–323 bce ) in Ancient Greece famously identifying as “a citizen of the world.” 8 This suggests that realization of commonality, common humanity, and the risks of patriotism and nationalism as responses to relativization and emulation have enabled at least a “thin” kind of global consciousness for a very long time, as a precursor to today’s popular awareness of globalization, even if such a global consciousness was in ancient history framed within regional rather than planetary discourse.

In the same way as culturally oriented globalization scholars, those theorizing from an economic and/or political perspective conceive the processes of globalization emerging most substantively in the 15th and 16th centuries, through the development of the capitalist world economic system and the growth of British- and European-based empires holding vast regions of land in Africa, Asia, and the Americas as colonies to enhance trade and consumption within empire capitals. According to Immanuel Wallerstein’s world system theory, which emerged before globalization theory, in the 1970s, the capitalist world economic system is one of the most essential framing elements of the human experience around the world in the modern (or postmodern) era. 9 Interaction across societies primarily for economic purposes, “ not bounded by a unitary political structure,” characterizes the world economy, as well as a capitalist order, which conceives the main purpose of international economic exchange as being the endless generation and accumulation of capital. 10 A kind of global logic was therein introduced, which has expanded around the globe as we now see ourselves as located within an international financial system.

Though some identify world system theory as an alternative or precursor to globalization theories (given Wallerstein’s own writing, which distinguished his view from globalization views 11 ), its focus on a kind of planetary global logic interrelates with globalization theories emerging in the 1980s and 1990s. 12 Additionally, its own force and popularity in public and academic discussions enabled the kind of global consciousness and sense of global interrelation of people which we can regard as major assumptions underpinning the major political-economic theories of globalization and the social imaginary of globalization 13 that came after.

Globalization emerged within common discourse as the process of international economic and political integration and interdependency was seen to deepen and intensify during and after the Cold War era of international relations. At that time, global ideologies were perceived which spanned diverse cultures and nation-states, while global economic and military interdependency became undeniable facts of the human condition. Thus, taking world systems theory as a starting point, global capitalism models have theorized the contemporary economic system, recognizing aspects of world society not well suited to the previously popular nationalistic ways of thinking about international affairs. Leslie Sklair 14 and William Robinson 15 highlighted the transnational layer of capitalistic economic activity, including practices, actors and social classes, and ideologies of international production and trade, elaborated by Robinson as “an emergent transnational state apparatus,” a postnational or extranational ideological, political, and practical system for societies, individuals, and groups to interact in the global space beyond political borders. 16 Globalization is thus basically understood as a process or condition of contemporary human life, at the broadest level, rather than a single event or activity.

Technological framings: In the 1980s and 1990s, the impact of technology on many people’s lives, beliefs, and activities rose tremendously, altering the global political economy by adding an intensity of transnational communication and (financial and information) trading capabilities. Manuel Castells argued that technological advancements forever altered the economy by creating networks of synchronous or near-synchronous communication and trade of information. 17 Anthony Giddens likewise observed globalization’s essence as “time-space distanciation”: “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.” 18 As information became present at hand with the widespread use of the Internet, a postindustrial society has also been recognized as a feature of globalization, wherein skills and knowledge to manipulate data and networks become more valuable than producing goods or trading material resources.

Today, globalization is increasingly understood as having interrelating cultural, political-economic, and technological dimensions, and theorists have thus developed conceptualizations and articulations of globalization that work to emphasize the ways that these aspects intersect in human experience. Arjun Appadurai’s conception of global flows frames globalization as taking place as interactive movements or waves of interlinked practices, people, resources, and ideologies: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. 19 Ethnoscapes are waves of people moving across cultures and borders, while mediascapes are moving local, national, and international constructions of information and images. Technoscapes enable (and limit) interactions of peoples, cultures, and resources through technology, while finanscapes reflect intersection values and valuations; human, capital, and national resources; and more. Ideoscapes reflect competing, interacting, reconstructing ideologies, cultures, belief systems, and understandings of the world and humanity. Through these interactive processes, people, things, and ideas move and move each other, around the world. 20

Evaluating Globalization

While the explanatory function of Appadurai’s vision of globalization’s intersecting dimensions is highlighted above, many theories of globalization emphasize normative positions in relation to the perceived impact of global and transnational processes and practices on humanity and the planet. Normative views of globalization may be framed as skeptical , globalist , or transformationalist . As Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard note, these are ideal types, rather than clearly demarcated practical parties or camps of theorists, though they have become familiar and themselves a part of the social imaginary of globalization (that is, the way globalization is perceived in normative and empirical ways by ordinary people rather than researchers). 21 The positions are also reflected in the many educational discourses relating to globalization, despite their ideological rather than simply empirical content.

Skeptical views: Approaches to globalization in research that are described as skeptical may question or problematize globalization discourse in one of two different ways. The first type of skepticism questions the significance of globalization. The second kind of skepticism tends to embrace the idea of globalization, but regards its impact on people, communities, and/or the planet as negative or risky, overall.

As discussed here, global or international processes are hardly new, while globalization became a buzzword only in the last decades of the 20th century. Thus a first type of skeptic may charge that proponents of globalization or globalization theory are emphasizing the newness of global processes for ulterior motives, as a manner of gaining attention for their work, celebrating that which should instead be seen as problematic capitalist economic relations, for example. Alternatively, some argue that the focus on globalization in research, theorization, and popular discourse fails to recognize the agency of people and communities as actors in the world today, and for this reason should be avoided and replaced by a focus on the “transnational.” As Michael Peter Smith articulates, ordinary individual people, nation-states, and their practices remain important within the so-called global system; a theory of faceless, ahistorical globalization naturalizes global processes and precludes substantive elaboration of how human (and national) actors have played and continue to play primary roles in the world through processes of knowledge and value construction, and through interpersonal and transnational activities. 22

The second strand of globalization skepticism might be referred to as antiglobalist or antiglobalization positions. Thinkers in this vein regard globalization as a mark of our times, but highlight the perceived negative impacts of globalization on people and communities. Culturally, this can include homogenization and loss of indigenous knowledge, and ways of life, or cultural clashes that are seen to arise out of the processes of relativization and emulation in some cases. George Ritzer coined the term “McDonaldization” to refer to the problematic elements of the rise of a so-called global culture. 23 More than simply the proliferation of McDonalds fast-food restaurants around the world, McDonaldization, according to Ritzer, includes a valuation of efficiency over humanity in production and consumption practices, a focus on quantity over quality, and control and technology over creativity and culture. Global culture is seen as a negative by others who conceive it as mainly the product of a naïve cultural elite of international scholars and business people, in contrast with “low-end globalization,” which is the harsher realities faced by the vast majority of people not involved in international finance, diplomacy, or academic research. 24

Alternatively, Benjamin Barber 25 and Samuel Huntington 26 have focused on “Jihad versus McWorld” and the “clash of civilizations,” respectively, as cultures can be seen to mix in negative and unfriendly ways in the context of globalization. Although Francis Fukuyama and other hopeful globalists perceived a globalization of Western liberal democracy at the turn of the 21st century, 27 unforeseen global challenges such as terrorism have fueled popular claims by Barber and Huntington that cultural differences across major “civilizations” (international ideological groupings), particularly of liberal Western civilization and fundamentalist Islam, preclude their peaceful relativization, homogenization, and/or hybridization, and instead function to increase violent interactions of terrorism and war.

Similarly, but moving away from cultural aspects of globalization, Ulrich Beck highlighted risk as essential to understanding globalization, as societies face new problems that may be related to economy or even public health, and as their interdependencies with others deepen and increase. 28 Beck gave the example of Mad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) as one instance where much greater and more broadly distributed risks have been created through global economic and political processes. Skeptical economic theories of globalization likewise highlight how new forms of inequality emerge as global classes and labor markets are created. For instance, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that a faceless power impersonally oppresses grassroots people despite the so-called productivity of globalization (that is, the growth of capital it enables) from a capitalist economic orientation. 29 It is this faceless but perceived inhumane power that has fueled globalization protests, particularly of the meetings of the World Trade Organization in the 1990s and 2000s, in the United States and Europe.

In light of such concerns, Walden Bello argued for “deglobalization,” a reaction and response by people that aims to fight against globalization and reorient communities to local places and local lifestyles. Bello endorsed a radical shift to a decentralized, pluralistic system of governance from a political-economic perspective. 30 Similarly, Colin Hines argues for localization, reclaiming control over local economies that should become as diverse as possible to rebuild stability within communities. 31 Such ideas have found a broad audience, as movements to “buy local” and “support local workers” have spread around the world rapidly in the 2000s.

Globalist views: Globalists include researchers and advocates who highlight the benefits of globalization to different communities and in various areas of life, often regarding it as necessary or natural. Capitalist theories of globalization regard it as ideal for production and consumption, as greater specialism around the world increases efficiency. 32 The productive power of globalization is also highlighted by Giddens, who sees the potential for global inclusivity and enhanced creative dialogue arising (at least in part) from global processes. 33 In contrast with neoliberal (pro-capitalism) policies, Giddens propagated the mixture of the market and state interventions (socialism and Keynesian economy), and believed that economic policies with socially inclusive ideas would influence social and educational policies and thus promote enhanced social development.

The rise of global culture enhances the means for people to connect with one another to improve life and give it greater meaning, and can increase mutual understanding. As democracy becomes popular around the world as a result of global communication processes, Scott Burchill has argued that universal human rights can be achieved to enhance global freedom in the near future. 34 Joseph Stiglitz likewise envisioned a democratizing globalization that can include developing countries on an equal basis and transform “economic beings” to “human beings” with values of community and social justice. 35 Relatedly, some globalists contend against skeptics that cultural and economic-political or ideological hybridity and “glocalization,” as well as homogenization or cultural clashes, often can and do take place. Under glocalization , understood as local-level globalization processes (rather than top-down intervention), local actors interact dynamically with, and are not merely oppressed by, ideas, products, things, and practices from outside and beyond. Thus, while we can find instances of “Jihad” and “McWorld,” so too can we find Muslims enjoying fast food, Westerners enjoying insights and activities from Muslim and Eastern communities, and a variety of related intercultural dialogues and a dynamic reorganization of cultural and social life harmoniously taking place.

Transformationalist views: Globalization is increasingly seen by educators (among others) around the globe to have both positive and negative impacts on communities and individuals. Thus, most scholars today hold nuanced, middle positions between skepticism and globalism, such as David Held and Anthony McGrew’s transformationalist stance. 36 As Rizvi and Lingard note, globalization processes have material consequences in the world that few would flatly deny, while people increasingly do see themselves as interconnected around the globe, by technology, trade, and more. 37 On the other hand, glocalization is often a mixed blessing, from a comparative standpoint. Global processes do not happen outside of political and economic contexts, and while some people clearly benefit from them, others may not appear to benefit from or desire processes and conditions related to globalization.

Thus, Rizvi and Lingard identify globalization “as an empirical fact that describes the profound shifts that are taking place in the world; as an ideology that masks various expression of power and a range of political interests; and as a social imaginary that expresses the sense people have of their own identity and how it relates to the rest of the world, and … their aspirations and expectations.” 38 Such an understanding of globalization enables its continuous evaluation in terms of dynamic interrelated practices, processes, and ideas, as experienced and engaged with by people and groups within complex transnational webs of organization. Understandings of globalization thus link to education in normative and empirical ways within research. It is to the relationship of globalization to education that we now turn.

Historical Background

Globalization and education are highly interrelated from a historical view. At the most basic level, historical processes that many identify as essential precursors to political-economic globalization during the late modern colonial and imperialist eras influenced the development and rise of mass education. Thus, what we commonly see around the world today as education, mass schooling of children, could be regarded as a first instance of globalization’s impact on education, as in many non-Western contexts traditional education had been conceived as small-scale, local community-based, and as vocational or apprenticeship education, and/or religious training. 39 In much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the indigenous Americas and Australasia, institutionalized formal schools emerged for the first time within colonial or (often intersecting) missionary projects, for local elite youth and children of expatriate officials.

The first educational scholarship with a global character from a historical point of view would thus be research related to colonial educational projects, such as in India, Africa, and East Asia, which served to create elite local communities to serve colonial officials, train local people to work in economic industries benefiting the colony, and for preservation of the status quo. Most today would describe this education as not part of an overall development project belonging to local communities, but as a foreign intervention for global empire maintenance or social control. As postcolonial educational theorists such as Paulo Freire have seen it, this education sought to remove and dismiss local culture as inferior, and deny local community needs for the sake of power consolidation of elites, and it ultimately served as a system of oppression on psychological, cultural, and material levels. 40 It has been associated by diverse cultural theorists within and outside the educational field with the loss of indigenous language and knowledge production, with moral and political inculcation, and with the spread of English as an elite language of communication across the globe. 41

Massification of education in the service of local communities in most developing regions roughly intersected with the period after the Second World War and in the context of national independence movements, wherein nationally based communities reorganized as politically autonomous nation-states (possibly in collaboration with former colonial parties). In 1945 , the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) emerged, as the United Nations recognized education as critical for future global peace and prosperity, preservation of cultural diversity, and global progress toward stability, economic flourishing, and human rights. UNESCO has advocated for enhancement of quality and access to education around the world through facilitating the transnational distribution of educational resources, establishing (the discourse of) a global human right to education, promoting international transferability of educational and teaching credentials, developing mechanisms for measuring educational achievement across countries and regions, and supporting national and regional scientific and cultural developments. 42 The World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have engaged in similar work.

Thus, the first modern global educational research was that conducted by bodies affiliated with or housed under UNESCO, such as the International Bureau of Education, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and the International Institute of Educational Planning, which are regarded as foundational bodies sponsoring international and comparative research. In research universities, educational borrowing across international borders became one significant topic of research for an emerging field of scholars identified as comparative educational researchers. Comparative education became a major field of educational inquiry in the first half of the 20th century, and expanded in the 1950s and 1960s. 43 Comparative educational research then focused on aiding developing countries’ education and improving domestic education through cross-national examinations of educational models and achievement. Today, comparative education remains one major field among others that focuses on globalization and education, including international education and global studies in education.

Globalization as a contemporary condition or process clearly shapes education around the globe, in terms of policies and values; curriculum and assessment; pedagogy; educational organization and leadership; conceptions of the learner, the teacher, and the good life; and more. Though, following the legacy of the primacy of a nation-state and systems-theory levels of analysis, it is traditionally conceived that educational ideas and changes move from the top, such as from UNESCO and related bodies and leading societies, to the developing world, we find that often glocalization and hybridity, rather than simple borrowing, are taking place. On the other hand, education is also held by scholars and political leaders to be a key to enhancing the modern (or postmodern) human condition, as a symbol of progress of the global human community, realized as global citizenship education, education for sustainable development, and related initiatives. 44 The next subsections consider how globalization processes have been explored in educational research as shapers of education, and how education and educators can also be seen to influence globalization.

Research on Globalization’s Impact on Education

Global and transnational processes and practices have been observed to influence and impact various aspects of contemporary education within many geographical contexts, and thus the fields of research related to education and globalization are vast: they are not contained simply within one field or subfield, but can be seen to cross subdisciplinary borders, in policy studies, curriculum, pedagogy, higher education studies, assessment, and more. As mentioned previously, modern education can itself be seen as one most basic instance of globalization, connected to increased interdependency of communities around the world in economic and political affairs first associated with imperialism and colonialism, and more recently with the capitalist world economy. And as the modern educational system cannot be seen as removed or sealed off from cultural and political-economic processes involved in most conceptualizations of globalization, the impacts of globalization processes upon education are often considered wide-ranging, though many are also controversial.

Major trends: From a functionalist perspective, the globalization of educational systems has been influenced by new demands and desires for educational transferability, of students and educators. In place of dichotomous systems in terms of academic levels and credentialing, curriculum, and assessment, increasing convergence can be observed today, as it is recognized that standardization makes movement of people in education across societies more readily feasible, and that such movement of people can enhance education in a number of ways (to achieve diversity, to increase specialization and the promotion of dedicated research centers, to enhance global employability, and so on). 45 Thus, the mobility and paths of movement of students and academics, for education and better life opportunities, have been a rapidly expanding area of research. A related phenomenon is that of offshore university and school campuses—the mobility of educational institutions to attract and recruit new students (and collect fees), such as New York University in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. By implication, education is often perceived as becoming more standardized around the globe, though hybridity can also be observed at the micro level.

How economic integration under globalization impacts local educational systems has been traced by Rizvi and Lingard. 46 As they note, from a broad view, the promotion of neoliberal values in the context of financial adjustment and restructuring of poorer countries under trade and debt agreements led by intergovernmental organizations, most notably the OECD, encouraged, first, fiscal discipline in educational funding (particularly impacting the payment of educators in many regions) and, second, the redistribution of funds to areas of education seen as more economically productive, namely primary education, and to efforts at privatization and deregulation of education. While the educational values of countries can and do vary, from democracy and peace, to social justice and equity, and so on, Rizvi and Lingard also observed that social and economic efficiency views have become dominant within governments and their educational policy units. 47 Though human capital theory has always supported the view that individuals gain proportionately according to the investment in their education and training, this view has become globalized in recent decades to emphasize how whole societies can flourish under economic interdependency via enhanced education.

These policy-level perspectives have had serious implications for how knowledge and thus curriculum are increasingly perceived. As mentioned previously, skills for gaining knowledge have taken precedent over knowledge accumulation, with the rise of technology and postindustrial economies. In relation, “lifelong learning,” learning to be adaptive to challenges outside the classroom and not merely to gain academic disciplinary knowledge, has become a focal point for education systems around the globe in the era of globalization. 48 Along with privatization of education, as markets are seen as more efficient than government systems of provision, models of educational choice and educational consumption have become normalized as alternatives to the historical status quo of traditional academic or intellectual, teacher-centered models. Meanwhile, the globalization of educational testing—that is, the use of the same tests across societies around the world—has had a tremendous impact on local pedagogies, assessment, and curricula the world over. Though in each country decision-making structures are not exactly the same, many societies face pressure to focus on math, science, and languages over other subjects, as a result of the primacy of standardized testing to measure and evaluate educational achievement and the effectiveness of educational systems. 49

However, there remains controversy over what education is the best in the context of relativization and emulation of educational practices and students, and therefore the 2010s have seen extraordinary transfers of educational approaches, not just from core societies to peripheral or developing areas, but significant horizontal movements of educational philosophies and practices from West to East and East to West. With the rise of global standardized tests such as the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), educational discourse in Western societies has increasingly emphasized the need to reorient education to East Asian models (such as Singapore or Shanghai), seen as victors of the tests. 50 On the other hand, many see Finland’s educational system as ideal in relation to its economic integration in society and focus on equity in structure and orientation, and thus educators in the Middle East, East Asia, and the United States have also been seen to consider emulating Finnish education in the 2010s. 51

Evaluations: From a normative point of view, some regard changes to local education in many contexts brought about by globalization as harmful and risky. Freire’s postcolonial view remains salient to those who remain concerned that local languages and indigenous cultural preservation are being sacrificed for elite national and international interests. 52 There can be no doubt that language diversity has been decreasing over time, while indigenous knowledge is being reframed within globalist culture as irrelevant to individual youths’ material needs. 53 Many are additionally skeptical of the sometimes uncritical adoption of educational practices, policies, and discourse from one region of the globe to another. In many countries in Africa and the Middle East, ideas and curricula are borrowed from the United Kingdom, the United States, or Finland in an apparently hasty manner, only to be discarded for the next reform, when it is not found to fit neatly and efficiently within the local educational context (for instance, given local educational values, structures and organizations, and educator and student views). 54 Others argue, in parallel to globalization skeptics, that globalization’s major impact on education has actually been the promotion of a thin layer of aspirational, cosmopolitan values among global cultural elites, who largely overlook the realities, problems, and challenges many face. 55

On the other hand, the case for globalization as a general enhancer of education worldwide has compelling evidence as well. Due to the work of UNESCO, the OECD, and related organizations, educational attainment has become more equitable globally, by nation, race, gender, class, and other markers of social inequality; and educational access has been recognized as positively aligned with personal and national economic improvement, according to quantitative educational researchers. 56 (David Hill, Nigel Greaves, and Alpesh Maisuria argue from a Marxist viewpoint that education in conjunction with global capitalism reinforces rather than decreases inequality and inequity; yet they also note that capitalism can be and often has been successfully regulated to diminish rather than increase inequality generally across countries. 57 ) As education has been effectively conceived as a human right in the era of globalization, societies with historically uneven access to education are on track to systematically enhance educational quality and access.

Changes to the way knowledge and the learner have been conceived, particularly with the rise of ubiquitous technology, are also often regarded as positive overall. People around the world have more access to information than ever before with the mass use of the Internet, and students of all ages can access massive open online courses (MOOCs); dynamic, data-rich online encyclopedias; and communities of like-minded scholars through social networks and forums. 58 In brick-and-mortar classrooms, educators and students are more diverse than ever due to enhanced educational mobility, and both are exposed to a greater variety of ideas and perspectives that can enhance learning for all participants. Credentials can be earned from reputable universities online, with supervision systems organized by leading scholars in global studies in education in many cases. Students have more choices when it comes to learning independently or alongside peers, mentors, or experts, in a range of disciplines, vocations, and fields.

The truth regarding how globalization processes and practices are impacting contemporary education no doubt lies in focusing somewhere in between the promises and the risks, depending on the context in question: the society, the educational level, the particular community, and so on. Particularly with regard to the proposed benefits of interconnectivity and networked ubiquitous knowledge spurred by technology, critics contend that the promise of globalization for enhancing education has been severely overrated. Elites remain most able to utilize online courses and use technologies due to remaining inequalities in material and human resources. 59 At local levels, globalization in education (more typically discussed as internationalization) remains contentious in many societies, as local values, local students and educators, and local educational trends can at times be positioned as at odds with the priorities of globalization, of internationalizing curricula, faculty, and student bodies. As part of the social imaginary of globalization, international diversity can become a buzzword, while cultural differences across communities can result in international students and faculty members becoming ghettoized on campus. 60 International exchanges of youth and educators for global citizenship education can reflect political and economic differences between communities, not merely harmonious interconnection and mutual appreciation. 61 In this context of growing ambivalence, education and educators are seen increasingly as part of the solution to the problems and challenges of the contemporary world that are associated with globalization, as educators can respond to such issues in a proactive rather than a passive way, to ensure globalization’s challenges do not exceed its benefits to individuals and communities.

Education’s Potential Impact on Globalization

As globalization is increasingly regarded with ambivalence in relation to the perceived impact of global and transnational actors and processes on local educational systems, educators are increasingly asked not to respond passively to globalization, through enacting internationalization and global economic agendas or echoing simplistic conceptualizations or evaluations of globalization via their curriculum. Instead, education has been reframed in the global era as something youth needs, not just to accept globalization but to interact with it in a critical and autonomous fashion. Two major trends have occurred in curriculum and pedagogy research, wherein education is identified as an important potential shaper of globalization. These are global citizenship education (also intersecting with what are called 21st-century learning and competencies) and education for sustainable development.

Global citizenship education: Global citizenship education has been conceived by political theorists and educational philosophers as a way to speak back to globalization processes seen as harmful to individuals and communities. As Martha Nussbaum has argued, educators should work to develop in students feelings of compassion, altruism, and empathy that extend beyond national borders. 62 Kathy Hytten has likewise written that students need to learn today as part of global citizenship education not just feelings of sympathy for people around the world, but critical skills to identify root causes of problems that intersect the distinction of local and global, as local problems can be recognized as interconnected with globalization processes. 63 In relation to this, UNESCO and nongovernmental organizations and foundations such as Oxfam and the Asia Society have focused on exploring current practices and elaborating best practices from a global comparative standpoint for the dissemination of noncognitive, affective, “transversal” 21st-century competencies, to extend civic education in the future in the service of social justice and peace, locally and globally. 64

Questions remain in this area in connection with implementation within curriculum and pedagogy. A first question is whether concepts of altruism, empathy, and even harmony, peace, and justice, are translatable, with equivalent meanings across cultural contexts. There is evidence that global citizenship education aimed at educating for values to face the potential harms of globalization is converging around the world on such aims as instilling empathy and compassion, respect and appreciation of diversity, and personal habits or virtues of open-mindedness, curiosity, and creativity. However, what these values, virtues, and dispositions look like, how they are demonstrated, and their appropriate expressions remain divergent as regards Western versus Eastern and African societies (for example). 65 By implication, pedagogical or curriculum borrowing or transferral in this area may be problematic, even if some basic concepts are shared and even when best practices can be established within a cultural context.

Additionally, how these skills, competencies, and dispositions intersect with the cognitive skills and political views of education across societies with different cultures of teaching and learning also remains contentious. In line with the controversies over normative views of globalization, whether the curriculum should echo globalist or skeptical positions remains contested by educators and researchers in the field. Some argue that a focus on feelings can be overrated or even harmful in such education, given the immediacy and evidence of global social justice issues that can be approached rationally and constructively. 66 Thus, token expressions of cultural appreciation can be seen to preclude a deeper engagement with social justice issues if the former becomes a goal in itself. On the other hand, the appropriate focus on the local versus the global, and on the goods versus the harms of globalization, weighs differently across and within societies, from one individual educator to the next. Thus, a lack of evidence of best practices in relation to the contestation over ultimate goals creates ambivalence at the local level among many educators about what and how to teach global citizenship or 21st-century skills, apart from standardized knowledge in math, science, and language.

Education for sustainable development: Education for sustainable development is a second strand of curriculum and pedagogy that speaks back to globalization and that is broadly promoted by UNESCO and related intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. Education for sustainable development is, like global citizenship education, rooted in globalization’s impact upon individuals in terms of global consciousness. Like global citizenship, education for sustainable development also emphasizes global interconnection in relation to development and sustainability challenges. It is also a broad umbrella term that reflects an increasingly wide array of practices, policies, and programs, formal and informal, for instilling virtues and knowledge and skills seen to enable effective responses to challenges brought about by globalization. 67 In particular, education for sustainable development has seen global progress, like globalization, as enmeshed in intersecting cultural, social, and economic and political values and priorities. Education for All is an interrelated complementary thread of UNESCO work, which sees access to education as a key to social justice and development, and the improvement of human quality of life broadly. In developed societies, environmental sustainability has come to be seen as a pressing global issue worth curricular focus, as behaviors with regard to consumption of natural resources impact others around the world, as well as future generations. 68

A diversity of practices and views also marks this area of education, resulting in general ambiguity about overall aims and best means. Controversies over which attitudes of sustainability are most important to inculcate, and whether it is important to inculcate them, intertwine with debates over what crises are most pertinent and what skills and competencies students should develop. Measures are in place for standardizing sustainability knowledge in higher education worldwide, as well as for comparing the development of prosustainability attitudes. 69 However, some scholars argue that both emphases miss the point, and that education for sustainable development should first be about changing cultures to become more democratic, creative, and critical, developing interpersonal and prosocial capabilities first, as the challenges of environmental sustainability and global development are highly complex and dynamic. 70 Thus, as globalization remains contested in its impacts, challenges, and promise at local levels, so too does the best education that connects positively with globalization to enhance local and global life. In this rich and diverse field, as processes of convergence and hybridity of glocalization continue to occur, the promise of globalization and the significance of education in relation to it will no doubt remain lively areas of debate in the future, as globalization continues to impact communities in diverse ways.

Research Considerations

There is no shortage of normative and explanatory theories about globalization, each of which points to particular instances and evidence about domains and contexts of globalization. However, when it comes to understanding the interconnections of globalization and education, some consensus regarding best practices for research has emerged. In fields of comparative and international education and global studies in education, scholars are increasingly calling today for theories and empirical investigations that are oriented toward specificity, particularity, and locality, in contrast with the grand theories of globalization elaborated by political scholars. However, a challenge is that such scholarship should not be reduced artificially to one local level in such a way as to exclude understanding of international interactions, in what has been called in the research community “methodological nationalism.” 71 Such reductive localism or nationalism can arise particularly in comparative education research, as nation-states have been traditional units for comparative analysis, but are today recognized as being too diverse from one to the next to be presumed similar (while global processes impact them in disparate ways). 72 Thus, Rizvi has articulated global ethnography as a focused approach to the analysis of international educational projects that traces interconnections and interactions of local and global actors. 73 In comparative educational research, units of analysis must be critically pondered and selected, and it is also possible to make comparisons across levels within one context (for instance, from local educational interactions to higher-level policy-making processes in one society). 74

Qualitative and quantitative analyses can be undertaken to measure global educational achievements, values, policy statements, and more; yet researcher reflexivity and positionality, what is traditionally conceived of as research ethics, is increasingly seen as vital for researchers in this politically and ethically contentious field. Although quantitative research remains important for highlighting convergences in data in global educational studies, such research cannot tell us what we should do, as it does not systematically express peoples’ values and beliefs about the aims of education, or their experiences of globalization, and so on, particularly effectively. On the other hand, normative questions about how people’s values intersect with globalization and related educational processes can give an in-depth view of one location or case, but should be complemented by consideration of generalizable trends. 75

In either case, cultural assumptions can interfere or interact in problematic or unintentional ways with methodologies of data gathering and analysis, for instance, when questions or codes (related to race, ethnicity, or class, for example) are applied across diverse sites by researchers, who may not be very familiar and experienced across divergent cultural contexts. 76 Thus, beyond positionality, the use of collaborative research teams has become popular in global and comparative educational research, to ensure inevitable cultural and related differences across research domains are sufficiently addressed in the research process. 77 In this context, researchers must also contend with the challenges of collaborating across educational settings, as new methods of engaging, saving, and sharing data at distance through technology continue to unfold in response to ongoing challenges with data storage, data security, and privacy.

Among recent strands of educational research fueled by appreciation for globalization is the exploration of the global economy of knowledge. Such research may consider the practices and patterns of movement, collaboration, research production and publication, and authorship of researchers, and examine data from cultural, political, and economic perspectives, asking whose knowledge is regarded as valid and most prized, and what voices dominate in conversations and discourse around globalization and education, such as in classrooms studying global studies in education, or in leading research journals. 78 Related research emerging includes questions such as who produces knowledge, who is the subject of knowledge, and where are data gathered, as recurring historical patterns may appear to be reproduced in contemporary scholarship, wherein those from the global North are more active in investigating and elaborating knowledge in the field, while those from the global South appear most often as subjects of research. As globalization of education entails the globalization of knowledge itself, such inquiries can be directed to various sites and disciplines outside of education, in considering how communication, values, and knowledge are being dynamically revised today on a global scale through processes of globalization.

Research that focuses on globalization and education uses a wide array of approaches and methods, topics, and orientations, as well as diverse theoretical perspectives and normative assumptions. The foregoing sections have explored this general field, major debates, and topics; the relationships have been traced between globalization and education; and there have been brief comments on considerations for research. One key point of the analysis has been that the way globalization is conceived has implications for how its relationship with education is understood. This is important, for as is illustrated here, the ways of conceptualizing globalization are diverse, in terms of how the era of globalization is framed chronologically (as essential to the human condition, to modernity, or as a late 20th-century phenomena), what its chief characteristics are from cultural, political-economic, and technological views, and whether its impact on human life and history is seen as good or bad. A broad consideration of viewpoints has highlighted the emergence of a middle position within research literature: there is most certainly an intertwined meeting and movement of peoples, things, and ideas around the globe; and clearly, processes associated with globalization have good and bad aspects. However, these processes are uneven, and they can be seen to impact different communities in various ways, which are clearly not, on the whole, simply all good or all bad.

That the processes associated with globalization are interrelated with the history and future of education is undeniable. In many ways global convergence around educational policies, practices, and values can be observed in the early 21st century. Yet educational borrowing and transferral remain unstraightforward in practice, as educational and cultural differences across social contexts remain, while the ultimate ends of education (such as math competencies versus moral cultivation) are essentially contested. Thus, specificity is important to understand globalization in relation to education. As with globalization generally, globalization in education cannot be merely described as harmful or beneficial, but depends on one’s position in power relations, and on one’s values and priorities for local and global well-being.

Education and educators’ impact on globalization also remains an important area of research and theorization. Educators are no longer expected merely to react to globalization, they must purposefully interact with it, preparing students around the world to respond to globalization’s challenges. As cultural and political-economic considerations remain crucial in understanding major aspects of both globalization and education, positionality and research ethics and reflexivity remain important research concerns, to understand globalization not just as homogeneity or oppressive top-down features, but as complex and dynamic local, global, and transnational intersections of people, ideas, and goods, with unclear impacts in the future.

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2. R. Robertson (1992), Globalization: Social theory and global culture (Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 1992).

3. Robertson, Globalization .

4. Robertson, Globalization.

5. For an historical example of how negative cultural comparison has interconnected with international political relations, see H. Kotef (2015), Little Chinese feet encased in iron shoes: Freedom, movement, gender, and empire in Western political thought, Political Theory, 43 , 334–355.

6. B. Anderson (1983), Imagined communities (London: Verso).

7. Anderson, Imagined communities.

8. M. Nussbaum (1996), For love of country? (Boston: Boston Press).

9. I. Wallerstein (1974), The modern world system (New York: Academic Press).

10. I. Wallerstein (2000), Globalization or the age of transition? International Sociology, 15 , 249–265.

11. Wallerstein, Globalization.

12. Robinson, Theories.

13. F. Rizvi and B. Lingard (2010), Globalizing educational policy (London: Routledge).

14. L. Sklair (2002), Globalization: Capitalism and its alternatives (New York: Oxford University Press).

15. W. I. Robinson (2003), Transnational conflicts: Central America, social change, and globalization (London: Verso)

16. Robinson, Theories.

17. M. Castells (1996), The rise of the network society (Oxford: Blackwell).

18. A. Giddens (1990), The consequences of modernity (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity), 64 ; see also D. Harvey (1990), The condition of post-modernity (London: Blackwell).

19. A. Appadurai (1997), Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).

20. See also D. Held , A. G. McGrew , D. Goldblatt , and J. Perraton (1999), Global transformations: Politics, economics, and culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press) ; M. Waters (1995), Globalization (London: Routledge).

21. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing.

22. M. P. Smith (2001), Transnational urbanism: Locating globalization (Oxford: Blackwell).

23. G. Ritzer (1993), The McDonaldization of society (Boston: Pine Forge).

24. G. Mathews (2011), Ghetto at the center of the world (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press).

25. B. Barber (1995), Jihad versus McWorld (New York: Random House).

26. S. Huntington (1993), The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72 (3), 22–49.

27. F. Fukuyama (1992), The end of history and the last man (London: Free Press).

28. U. Beck (1992), The risk society: Toward a new modernity (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity).

29. M. Hardt and A. Negri (2000), Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) ; Hardt and Negri (2004), Multitude: War and democracy in the age of empire (New York: Penguin).

30. W. Bello (2004), Deglobalization: Ideas for a new world economy (London: New York University Press) ; Bello (2013), Capitalism’s last stand? Deglobalization in the age of austerity (London: Zed Books).

31. C. Hines (2000), Localization: A global manifesto (New York: Routledge).

32. See D. Harvey (1989), The condition of post-modernity: An enquiry into the conditions of cultural change (Oxford: Blackwell).

33. A. Giddens (1990), The consequences of modernity (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity).

34. S. Burchill (2009), Liberalism, in S. Burchill , A. Linklater , R. Devetak , J. Donnelly , T. Nardin , M. Paterson , C. Reus-Smit , and J. True (Eds.) (pp. 57–85), Theories of international relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

35. See, for instance, J. Stiglitz (2006), Making globalization work (New York: W. W. Norton).

36. D. Held and A. McGrew (Eds.) (2000), The global transformation reader: An introduction to the globalization debate (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity).

37. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing.

38. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing , 24.

39. T. Reagan (2000), Non-Western educational traditions: Alternative approaches to educational thought (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum). Of course, scholars such as Michael P. Smith would reject describing these processes as belonging to globalization, as people, nations, and communities played significant roles.

40. P. Freire (1972), Pedagogy of the oppressed (Victoria: Penguin).

41. B. Ashcroft , G. Griffiths , and H. Tiffin (Eds.) (1995), The post-colonial studies reader (London: Routledge).

42. R. E. Wanner (2015), UNESCO’s origins, achievements, problems and promise: An inside/outside perspective from the US (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre/University of Hong Kong).

43. M. Manzon (2011), Comparative education: The construction of a field (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre/University of Hong Kong).

44. S. Walby (2009), Globalization and inequalities (London: SAGE).

45. See for instance J. Stier (2004), Taking a critical stance toward internationalization ideologies in higher education: idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2 , 1–28.

46. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing .

47. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing .

48. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing .

49. Rizvi and Lingard, Globalizing .

50. See for instance M. S. Tucker and L. Darling-Hammond (2011), Surpassing Shanghai: An agenda for American education built on the world’s leading systems (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

51. See for instance P. Sahlberg (2014), Finnish lessons 2.0: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? (New York: Teachers College Press).

52. A. Darder (2015), Paulo Freire and the continuing struggle to decolonize education, in M. A Peters and T. Besley (Eds.), Paulo Freire: The global legacy (pp. 55–78) (New York: Peter Lang).

53. S. J. Shin (2009), Bilingualism in schools and society (London: Routledge) ; H. Norberg-Hodge (2009), Ancient futures: Lessons from Ladakh for a globalizing world (San Francisco: Sierra Club).

54. L. Jackson (2015), Challenges to the global concept of student-centered learning with special reference to the United Arab Emirates: “Never Fail a Nahayan,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47 , 760–773.

55. T. Besley (2012), Narratives of intercultural and international education: Aspirational values and economic imperatives, in T. Besley and M. A. Peters (Eds.), Interculturalism: Education and dialogue (pp. 87–112) (New York: Peter Lang).

56. W. J. Jacob and D. B. Holsinger (2008), Inequality in education: A critical analysis, in D. B. Holsinger and W. J. Jacob (Eds.), Inequality in education: Comparative and international perspectives (pp. 1–33) (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre/University of Hong Kong).

57. D. Hill , N. M. Greaves , and A. Maisuria (2008), Does capitalism inevitably increase inequality? in D. B. Holsinger and W. J. Jacob (Eds.), Inequality in education: Comparative and international perspectives (pp. 59–85) (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre/University of Hong Kong).

58. D. M. West (2013), Digital schools : How technology can transform education (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press) ; N. Burbules and T. Callister (2000), Watch IT: The risks and promises of technologies for education (Boulder, CO: Westview).

59. Burbules and Callister, Watch IT.

60. Stier, Critical Stance.

61. See for example, S. K. Gallwey and G. Wilgus (2014), Equitable partnerships for mutual learning or perpetuator of North-South power imbalances? Ireland–South Africa school links, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 44 , 522–544.

62. M. C. Nussbaum (2001), Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press).

63. K. Hytten (2009), Education for critical democracy and compassionate globalization, in R. Glass (Ed.), Philosophy of Education 2008 (pp. 330–332) (Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society).

64. See for example, Report to the UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century (1996), Learning: The treasure within (Paris: UNESCO) ; Asia Society (2015), A Rosetta Stone for noncognitive skills: Understanding, assessing, and enhancing noncognitive skills in primary and secondary education (New York: Asia Society).

65. See S. Y. Kang (2006), Identity-centered multicultural care theory: White, Black, and Korean caring, Educational Foundations, 20 (3–4), 35–49 ; L. Jackson (2016), Altruism, non-relational caring, and global citizenship education, in M. Moses (Ed.), Philosophy of Education 2014 (Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education).

66. Jackson, Altruism.

67. L. Jackson (2016), Education for sustainable development: From environmental education to broader view, in E. Railean , G. Walker , A. Elçi , and L. Jackson (Eds.), Handbook of research on applied learning theory and design in modern education (pp. 41–64) (Hershey, PA: IGI Press).

68. Jackson, Education for Sustainable Development.

69. Jackson, Education for Sustainable Development.

70. P. Vare and W. Scott (2007), Learning for change: Exploring the relationship between education and sustainable development, Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 1 , 191–198.

71. P. Kennedy (2011), Local lives and global transformations: Towards a world society (London: Palgrave).

72. M. Manzon (2015), Comparing places, in M. Bray , B. Adamson , and M. Mason (Eds.), Comparative education research: Approaches and methods (pp. 85–121) (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre/University of Hong Kong).

73. F. Rizvi (2009), Global mobility and the challenges of educational policy and research, in T. S. Popkewitz and F. Rizvi (Eds.), Globalization and the study of education (pp. 268–289) (Oxford: Blackwell).

74. Manzon, Comparing places.

75. G. P. Fairbrother , Qualitative and quantitative approaches to comparative education, in Bray , Adamson , and Mason (Eds.), Comparative education research (pp. 39–62).

76. L. Jackson (2015), Comparing race, class, and gender, in Bray , Adamson , and Mason (Eds.), Comparative education research (pp. 195–220).

77. M. Bray , B. Adamson , and M. Mason (2015), Different models, different emphases, different insights, in Bray , Adamson , and Mason (Eds.), Comparative education research , 421.

78. See, for instance, H. Tange and S. Miller (2015), Opening the mind? Geographies of knowledge and curricular practices, Higher Education , 1–15.

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✍️Essay on Globalisation: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Oct 25, 2023

Globalisation means the combination of economies and societies with the help of information, ideas, technology, finance, goods, services, and people. It is a process where multinational companies work on their international standing and conduct operations internationally or overseas. Over the years, Globalisation has had a profound impact on various aspects of society. Today we will be discussing what globalisation is and how it came into existence with the essay on globalisation listed below.

Table of Contents

• 1 How Globalisation Came Into Existence?
• 2 Essay on Globalisation in 100 Words
• 3 Essay on Globalisation in 150 Words
• 4 Essay on Globalisation in 200 Words

How Globalisation Came Into Existence?

For all those unaware, the concepts of globalisation first emerged in the 20th century. Here are some of the key events which led to the development of globalisation in today’s digital world.

• The ancient Silk Route as well as the maritime routes led to the exchange of goods, ideas and culture in several countries. Although these were just trade routes, but later became important centres for cultural exchange.
• Other than this, the European colonial expansion which took place from the 15th to the 20th century led to the setting up of global markets where both knowledge and people were transferred to several developing countries. 
• The evolution and exchange of mass media, cinema and the internet further led to the widespread dissemination of cultures and ideas.

Also Read: Essay on the Importance of the English Language for Students

Essay on Globalisation in 100 Words

Globalization, the interconnectedness of nations through trade, technology, and cultural exchange, has reshaped the world. It has enabled the free flow of goods and information, fostering economic growth and cultural diversity. However, it also raises challenges such as income inequality and cultural homogenization. 

In a globalized world, businesses expand internationally, but local industries can suffer. Moreover, while globalization promotes shared knowledge, it can erode local traditions. Striking a balance between the benefits and drawbacks of globalization is essential to ensure a more equitable and culturally diverse global community, where economies thrive without leaving anyone behind.

Also Read: Essay on Save Environment: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

Essay on Globalisation in 150 Words

Globalization is the process of increasing interconnectedness and interdependence among countries, economies, and cultures. It has transformed the world in various ways.

Economically, globalization has facilitated the flow of goods, services, and capital across borders. This has boosted economic growth and reduced poverty in many developing nations. However, it has also led to income inequality and job displacement in some regions.

Culturally, globalization has resulted in the spread of ideas, values, and cultural products worldwide. While this fosters cultural exchange and diversity, it also raises concerns about cultural homogenization.

Technologically, globalization has been driven by advances in communication and transportation. The internet and smartphones have connected people across the globe, allowing for rapid information dissemination and collaboration.

In conclusion, globalization is a complex phenomenon with both benefits and challenges. It has reshaped the world, bringing people closer together, but also highlighting the need for responsible governance and policies to address its downsides.

Also Read: Essay on Unity in Diversity in 100 to 200 Words

Essay on Globalisation in 200 Words

Globalization, a multifaceted phenomenon, has reshaped the world over the past few decades. It involves the interconnectedness of economies, cultures, and societies across the globe. In this essay, we will briefly discuss its key aspects and impacts.

Economically, globalization has led to increased international trade and investment. It has allowed companies to expand operations globally, leading to economic growth in many countries. However, it has also resulted in income inequality and job displacement in some regions.

Culturally, globalization has facilitated the exchange of ideas, values, and traditions. This has led to a more diverse and interconnected world where cultures blend, but it can also challenge local traditions and languages.

Socially, globalization has improved access to information and technology. It has connected people across borders, enabling global activism and awareness of worldwide issues. Nonetheless, it has also created challenges like cybercrime and privacy concerns.

In conclusion, globalization is a double-edged sword. It offers economic opportunities, cultural exchange, and global connectivity, but it also brings about disparities, cultural tensions, and new global challenges. To navigate this complex landscape, the world must strive for responsible globalization that balances the interests of all stakeholders and promotes inclusivity and sustainability.

Related Articles

The movement of goods, technologies, information, and jobs between countries is referred to as globalisation. 

Globalization as a phenomenon began with the earliest human migratory routes, or with Genghis Khan’s invasions, or travel across the Silk Road.

Globalisation allows wealthy nations to access cheaper labour and resources, while also providing opportunity for developing and underdeveloped nations with the jobs and investment capital they require.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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Globalization: Definition, Benefits, Effects, Examples – What is Globalization?

• Publié le 21 January 2019
• Mis à jour le 25 March 2024

Globalization – what is it? What is the definition of globalization? Benefits and negative effects? What are the top examples of globalization? What famous quotes have been said about globalization?

What is Globalization? All Definitions of Globalization

A simple globalization definition.

Globalization means the speedup of movements and exchanges (of human beings, goods, and services, capital, technologies or cultural practices) all over the planet. One of the effects of globalization is that it promotes and increases interactions between different regions and populations around the globe.

• Related: Traveling Today And Tomorrow: Cities And Countries With More Travelers

An Official Definition of Globalization by the World Health Organization (WHO)

According to WHO , globalization can be defined as ” the increased interconnectedness and interdependence of peoples and countries. It is generally understood to include two inter-related elements: the opening of international borders to increasingly fast flows of goods, services, finance, people and ideas; and the changes in institutions and policies at national and international levels that facilitate or promote such flows.”

What Is Globalization in the Economy?

According to the Committee for Development Policy (a subsidiary body of the United Nations), from an economic point of view, globalization can be defined as: “(…) the increasing interdependence of world economies as a result of the growing scale of cross-border trade of commodities and services, the flow of international capital and the wide and rapid spread of technologies. It reflects the continuing expansion and mutual integration of market frontiers (…) and the rapid growing significance of information in all types of productive activities and marketization are the two major driving forces for economic globalization.”

• Related: Planet VS Economy: How Coronavirus Is Unraveling A Dysfunctional System

What Is Globalization in Geography?

In geography, globalization is defined as the set of processes (economic, social, cultural, technological, institutional) that contribute to the relationship between societies and individuals around the world. It is a progressive process by which exchanges and flows between different parts of the world are intensified.

Globalization and the G20: What is the G20?

The G20 is a global bloc composed by the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union (EU). Established in 1999, the G20 gathers the most important industrialized and developing economies to discuss international economic and financial stability. Together, the nations of the G20 account for around 80% of global economic output, nearly 75 percent of all global trade, and about two-thirds of the world’s population.

G20 leaders get together in an annual summit to discuss and coordinate pressing global issues of mutual interest. Though economics and trade are usually the centerpieces of each summit’s agenda, issues like climate change, migration policies, terrorism, the future of work, or global wealth are recurring focuses too. Since the G20 leaders represent the “ political backbone of the global financial architecture that secures open markets, orderly capital flows, and a safety net for countries in difficulty”, it is often thanks to bilateral meetings during summits that major international agreements are achieved and that globalization is able to move forward.

The joint action of G20 leaders has unquestionably been useful to save the global financial system in the 2008/2009 crisis, thanks to trade barriers removal and the implementation of huge financial reforms. Nonetheless, the G20 was been struggling to be successful at coordinating monetary and fiscal policies and unable to root out tax evasion and corruption, among other downsides of globalization. As a result of this and other failures from the G20 in coordinating globalization, popular, nationalist movements across the world have been defending countries should pursue their interests alone or form fruitful coalitions.

How Do We Make Globalization More Just?

The ability of countries to rise above narrow self-interest has brought unprecedented economic wealth and plenty of applicable scientific progress. However, for different reasons, not everyone has been benefiting the same from globalization and technological change: wealth is unfairly distributed and economic growth came at huge environmental costs. How can countries rise above narrow self-interest and act together or designing fairer societies and a healthier planet? How do we make globalization more just?

According to Christine Lagarde , former President of the International Monetary Fund, “ debates about trade and access to foreign goods are as old as society itself ” and history tells us that closing borders or protectionism policies are not the way to go, as many countries doing it have failed.

Lagarde defends we should pursue globalization policies that extend the benefits of openness and integration while alleviating their side effects. How to make globalization more just is a very complex question that involves redesigning economic systems. But how? That’s the question.

Globalization is deeply connected with economic systems and markets, which, on their turn, impact and are impacted by social issues, cultural factors that are hard to overcome, regional specificities, timings of action and collaborative networks. All of this requires, on one hand, global consensus and cooperation, and on the other, country-specific solutions, apart from a good definition of the adjective “just”.

When Did Globalization Begin? The History of Globalization

For some people, this global phenomenon is inherent to human nature. Because of this, some say globalization begun about 60,000 years ago, at the beginning of human history. Throughout time, human societies’ exchanging trade has been growing. Since the old times, different civilizations have developed commercial trade routes and experienced cultural exchanges. And as well, the migratory phenomenon has also been contributing to these populational exchanges. Especially nowadays, since traveling became quicker, more comfortable, and more affordable.

This phenomenon has continued throughout history, notably through military conquests and exploration expeditions. But it wasn’t until technological advances in transportation and communication that globalization speeded up. It was particularly after the second half of the 20th century that world trades accelerated in such a dimension and speed that the term “globalization” started to be commonly used.

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Examples of Globalization (Concept Map)

Because of trade developments and financial exchanges, we often think of globalization as an economic and financial phenomenon. Nonetheless, it includes a much wider field than just flowing of goods, services or capital. Often referred to as the globalization concept map, s ome examples of globalization are:

• Economic globalization : is the development of trade systems within transnational actors such as corporations or NGOs;
• Financial globalization : can be linked with the rise of a global financial system with international financial exchanges and monetary exchanges. Stock markets, for instance, are a great example of the financially connected global world since when one stock market has a decline, it affects other markets negatively as well as the economy as a whole.
• 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).

Globalization Benefits – A Financial Example

At the same time, finance also became globalized. From the 1980s, driven by neo-liberal policies, the world of finance gradually opened. Many states, particularly the US under Ronald Reagan and the UK under Margaret Thatcher introduced the famous “3D Policy”: Disintermediation, Decommissioning, Deregulation.

The idea was to simplify finance regulations, eliminate mediators and break down the barriers between the world’s financial centers. And the goal was to make it easier to exchange capital between the world’s financial players. This financial globalization has contributed to the rise of a global financial market in which contracts and capital exchanges have multiplied.

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.

At the same time, books, movies, and music are now instantaneously available all around the world thanks to the development of the digital world and the power of the internet. These are perhaps the greatest contributors to the speed at which cultural exchanges and globalization are happening. There are also other examples of globalization regarding traditions like Black Friday in the US , the Brazilian Carnival or the Indian Holi Festival. They all were originally created following their countries’ local traditions and beliefs but as the world got to know them, they are now common traditions in other countries too.

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 of the main negative effects globalization has had so far.

The Negative Effects of Globalization on Cultural Loss

Apart from all the benefits globalization has had on allowing cultural exchanges it also homogenized the world’s cultures. That’s why specific cultural characteristics from some countries are disappearing. From languages to traditions or even specific industries. That’s why according to UNESCO , the mix between the benefits of globalization and the protection of local culture’s uniqueness requires a careful approach.

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 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.

• Related: Globally, Business And Government Lack Trust, A New Survey Shows

The Negative Effects of Globalization on the Environment

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 .

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• Are Avocados Truly Sustainable?

Globalization, Sustainable Development, and CSR

Globalization affects all sectors of activity to a greater or lesser extent. By doing so, its gap with issues that have to do with  sustainable development  and  corporate social responsibility  is short.

By promoting large-scale industrial production and the globalized circulation of goods, globalization is sometimes opposed to concepts such as resource savings, energy savings or the limitation of greenhouse gases . As a result, critics of globalization often argue that it contributes to accelerating climate change and that it does not respect the principles of ecology. At the same time, big companies that don’t give local jobs and choose instead to use the manpower of countries with low wages (to have lower costs) or pay taxes in countries with more favorable regulations is also opposed to the criteria of a CSR approach. Moreover, the ideologies of economic growth and the constant pursuit of productivity that come along with globalization, also make it difficult to design a sustainable economy based on  resilience .

On the other hand, globalization is also needed for the transitioning to a more sustainable world, since only a global synergy would really be able to allow a real ecological transition. Issues such as global warming indeed require a coordinated response from all global players: fight against CO2 emissions, reduction of waste, a transition to renewable energies . The same goes for ocean or air pollution, or ocean acidification, problems that can’t be solved without global action. The dissemination of green ideas also depends on the ability of committed actors to make them heard globally.

• What Are The Benefits Of Having A Network Of CSR Ambassadors?
• 5 Tips For Organizations To Develop Their CSR Strategy In 2020
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The Road From Globalization to Regionalization

Regionalization can also be analyzed from a corporate perspective. For instance, businesses such as McDonald’s or Starbucks don’t sell exactly the same products everywhere. In some specific stores, they consider people’s regional habits. That’s why the McChicken isn’t sold in India, whereas in Portugal there’s a steak sandwich menu like the ones you can get in a typical Portuguese restaurant.

Politically speaking, when left-wing parties are in power they tend to focus on their country’s people, goods and services. Exchanges with the outside world aren’t seen as very valuable and importations are often left aside.

• Related: Why Is It Important To Support Local And Small Businesses?

Globalization Quotes by World Influencers

Many world leaders, decision-makers and influential people have spoken about globalization. Some stand out its positive benefits and others focus deeper on its negative effects. Find below some of the most interesting quotes on this issue.

Politic Globalization Quotes

Globalization quote by the former U.S President Bill Clinton ??

No generation has had the opportunity, as we now have, to build a global economy that leaves no-one behind. It is a wonderful opportunity, but also a profound responsibility.

Globalization quote by Barack Obama , former U.S. president ??

Globalization is a fact, because of technology, because of an integrated global supply chain, because of changes in transportation. And we’re not going to be able to build a wall around that.

Globalization quote by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former International Monetary Fund Managing Director ??

“We can’t speak day after day about globalization without at the same time having in mind that…we need multilateral solutions.”

Globalization quote by Stephen Harper , former Prime Minister of Canada ??

“We have to remember we’re in a global economy. The purpose of fiscal stimulus is not simply to sustain activity in our national economies but to help the global economy as well, and that’s why it’s so critical that measures in those packages avoid anything that smacks of protectionism.”

Globalization quote by Julia Gillard , Prime Minister of Australia ??

“My guiding principle is that prosperity can be shared. We can create wealth together. The global economy is not a zero-sum game.”

Other Globalization Quotes

Globalization quote by the spiritual leader Dalai Lama ??

“I find that because of modern technological evolution and our global economy, and as a result of the great increase in population, our world has greatly changed: it has become much smaller. However, our perceptions have not evolved at the same pace; we continue to cling to old national demarcations and the old feelings of ‘us’ and ‘them’.”

The famous German sociologist Ulrich Beck also spoke of globalization ??

“Globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.”

Globalization quote by Bill Gates, owner and former CEO of Microsoft ??

“The fact is that as living standards have risen around the world, world trade has been the mechanism allowing poor countries to increasingly take care of really basic needs, things like vaccination.”

Globalization quote by John Lennon, member of the music band The Beatles ??

Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too. Imagine all the people. Living life in peace. You, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. I hope someday you will join us. And the world will be as one

Home / Essay Samples / Social Issues / Globalization / The Effects of Globalization: A Comprehensive Analysis

The Effects of Globalization: A Comprehensive Analysis

• Category: Economics , Social Issues
• Topic: Globalization , Indian Economy

Pages: 3 (1463 words)

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History of Globalization

Features of globalization.

• It leads to greater interaction between different populations in social terms.
• Culturally, globalization represents the exchange of ideas, values and artistic expression between cultures and even a trend towards the development of a single world culture.
• Globalization has paid political attention to intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
• Legally, globalization has changed the creation and enforcement of international law.

Factors That Led to Globalization

Globalization on the example of indian economy.

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