What Is Globalization?
Is it the integration of economic, political, and cultural systems across the globe?
Or is it the dominance of developed countries in decision-making, at the expense of
poorer, less powerful nations? Is globalization a force for economic growth,
prosperity, and democratic freedom? Or is it a force for environmental devastation,
exploitation of the developing world, and suppression of human rights? Does
globalization only benefit the rich or can the poor take advantage of it to improve
their well-being?
Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies,
and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and
investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the
environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity,
and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.
Globalization is not new, though. For thousands of years, people—and, later,
corporations—have been buying from and selling to each other in lands at great
distances, such as through the famed Silk Road across Central Asia that connected
China and Europe during the Middle Ages. Likewise, for centuries, people and
corporations have invested in enterprises in other countries. In fact, many of the features
of the current wave of globalization are similar to those prevailing before the outbreak
of the First World War in 1914.
Map of the Silk Road
But policy and technological developments of the past few decades have spurred
increases in cross-border trade, investment, and migration so large that many observers
believe the world has entered a qualitatively new phase in its economic development.
Since 1950, for example, the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times, and from
just 1997 to 1999 flows of foreign investment nearly doubled, from $468 billion to $827
billion. Distinguishing this current wave of globalization from earlier ones, author
Thomas Friedman has said that today globalization is “farther, faster, cheaper, and
deeper.”
This current wave of globalization has been driven by policies that have opened
economies domestically and internationally. In the years since the Second World War,
and especially during the past two decades, many governments have adopted freemarket
economic systems, vastly increasing their own productive potential and creating myriad
new opportunities for international trade and investment. Governments also have
negotiated dramatic reductions in barriers to commerce and have established
international agreements to promote trade in goods, services, and investment. Taking
advantage of new opportunities in foreign markets, corporations have built foreign
factories and established production and marketing arrangements with foreign partners.
A defining feature of globalization, therefore, is an international industrial and financial
business structure.
Technology has been the other principal driver of globalization. Advances in
information technology, in particular, have dramatically transformed economic life.
Information technologies have given all sorts of individual economic actors—
consumers, investors, businesses—valuable new tools for identifying and pursuing
economic opportunities, including faster and more informed analyses of economic
trends around the world, easy transfers of assets, and collaboration with far-flung
partners.
Globalization is deeply controversial, however. Proponents of globalization argue that it
allows poor countries and their citizens to develop economically and raise their
standards of living, while opponents of globalization claim that the creation of an
unfettered international free market has benefited multinational corporations in the
Western world at the expense of local enterprises, local cultures, and common people.
Resistance to globalization has therefore taken shape both at a popular and at a
governmental level as people and governments try to manage the flow of capital, labor,
goods, and ideas that constitute the current wave of globalization.
To find the right balance between benefits and costs associated with globalization,
citizens of all nations need to understand how globalization works and the policy
choices facing them and their societies. Globalization101.org tries to provide an
accurate analysis of the issues and controversies regarding globalization, especially to
high-school and college students, without the slogans or ideological biases generally
found in discussions of the topics. We welcome you to our website.
Technology in Depth
Introduction
In nearly every corner of the world, from Mumbai to Madrid, one cannot enter a café or
walk down the street without seeing someone talking, texting, or surfing the Internet on
their cell phones, laptop or PDA. Information Technology (IT) has become ubiquitous
and is changing every aspect of how people live their lives.
Recent advances in our ability to communicate and process information in digital
form— a series of developments sometimes described as an "IT revolution"—are
reshaping the economies and societies of many countries around the world.
Information Technology
Information Technology (IT) is a driving factor in the process of globalization.
Improvements in the early 1990s in computer hardware, software, and
telecommunications greatly increased people’s ability to access information and
economic potential. These advances have facilitated efficiency gains in all sectors of
the economy. IT drives the innovative use of resources to promore new products and
ideas, across nations and cultures, regardless of geographic location. Creating
efficient and effective channels to exchange information, IT has been the catalyst for
global integration.
Products based upon, or enhanced by, information technology are used in nearly every
aspect of life in contemporary industrial societies. The spread of IT and its applications
has been extraordinarily rapid. Just 30 years ago, for example, the use of desktop
personal computers was still limited to a fairly small number of technologically
advanced people. The overwhelming majority of people still produced documents with
typewriters, which permitted no manipulation of text and offer no storage.
Twenty years ago, large and bulky mobile telephones were carried only by a small
number of users in just a few U.S. cities. Today, more than half of all Americans use a
mobile phone, and in some developing countries, mobile phones are used by more
people than the fixed line telephone network. According to the Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association, 285 million Americans were subscribers to
cell phone plan in 2009,1 and in some developing countries, mobile phones are used by
more people than the fixed line telephone network.
But perhaps most dramatically, just fifteen years ago, only scientists were using (or
had even heard about) the Internet, the World Wide Web was not up and running, and
the browsers that help users navigate the Web had not even been invented yet. Today, of
course, the Internet and the Web have transformed commerce, creating entirely new
ways for retailers and their customers to make transactions, for businesses to manage
the flow of production inputs and market products, and for job seekers and job recruiters
to find one another.
The news industry has also been dramatically transformed by the emergence of
numerous Internet-enabled news-gathering and dissemination outlets. Websites, chat
rooms, instant messaging systems, e-mail, social networking sites and other
Internetbased communication systems have made it much easier for people with
common interests to to connect, exchange information, and collaborate with each other.
Education at all levels is continually transforming thanks to innovations in
communication, education, and presentation software. Websites now serve as a primary
source of information and analysis for the masses.
Advances in Information Technology
The IT revolution has been driven by the extraordinarily rapid decline in the cost and
rapid increase in the processing power of digital technologies. The digital device whose
technological advance has perhaps been most crucial to the IT revolution is the
microprocessor, the collections of millions of tiny circuits that serve as the "brains" of
personal computers and that are embedded in an ever-expanding number of products,
from video games, to cars, to refrigerators. Over the past two decades, the processing
power of microprocessors has doubled roughly every six months.
Rapid advancements in fiber optic technologies have also been critical to the IT
revolution. Fiber optics technology enables data, including voices captured in digital
form, to be converted into tiny pulses of light and then transmitted at high speeds
through glass fibers wrapped into large capacity telecommunication cables. Hundreds of
thousands of miles of these cables were installed over the past ten years, boosting the
speed and capacity of telecommunications networks.
Advances in microprocessors, fiber optics, and a number of other complementary
technologies, such as telecommunications switching devices and memory chips, have
dramatically increased the speed, processing capacity, and storage space of computers
and telecommunications networks themselves.
Click here to read more about advances in information technology: The Internet and
Cellular Entertainment Revolution and the Writer’s Strike.
Driving Down the Cost of Information Transactions
A key reason why these advances in IT have spread so quickly is that they have
progressively reduced the unit cost of computing power or the transmission of a
message. For less than $400, Americans without any advanced technical training can
purchase and use a desktop computer whose data processing power far exceeds the
room-sized computers that powered the spacecraft that carried astronauts to the moon
and back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Companies such as Microsoft have even
sold $100 computers to consumers in emerging countries as a way of helping
developing countries use more advanced technological resources
Source: World Development Indicators Database
The decline in computing prices is a factor in spurning the growth of computers in the
developing world (see Figure 1). Countries such as Zimbabwe, India, Brazil, and China
experienced tremendous growth in the number of personal computers. From 2000 to
2005, the growth rate of personal computers per capita exceeded 200 percent for most
of these nations, with developing countries like Zimbabwe increasing almost 600
percent. By the end of 2008, there were reportedly more than one billion PCs in use, and
by 2015, two billion are expected to be in use.2
The spread of digital technologies has also been spurred by several unique attributes of
information, which serves as the principal input and product of many IT industries. In
contrast to more tangible products, like consumer goods, one person's "consumption" of
a piece of information does not necessarily reduce or eliminate the possibility that
another person might benefit from the same piece of information.
Furthermore, networks built upon the exchange of information, like the Internet, tend to
become more valuable to existing participants as new participants link up with them.
Finally, the cost of using digital technologies, such as Internet service providers,
decreases as the number of users increases. All of these factors have worked together to
promote rapid growth in the demand for, and supply of, IT products and services.
During the second half of the 1990s, as more people bought computers and went online,
the average cost of the equipment and services necessary to access the Internet declined.
Today, individuals go beyond the conventional desktop computer to stay connected: Wi-
Fi networks, laptops, PDFs and even phones have utilized wireless networks to make
the Internet an integral—and necessary—part of everyday life.
Culture in Depth
Culture and Globalization Preface
The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter famously characterized capitalism as a
process of "creative destruction." While this phenomenon may help propel economic
development, many people around the world are coming to question the impact that the
worldwide expansion of the capitalist model is having on the most precious aspects of
their identity.
For many people, their own cultural values are too important to put a price tag on, and
no destruction can be considered "creative."
On the other hand, globalization can also be a profoundly enriching process, opening
minds to new ideas and experiences, and strengthening the finest universal values of
humanity.
The question of how the protection of local or indigenous cultural values come into
conflict with the forces of globalization is unchartered territory for many policymakers.
Many of the questions raised pertaining to cultural issues are new—and, as you will see,
some of the ways that cultural issues are raised may be of questionable merit.
This Issue Brief seeks to explore some of these especially sensitive and subtle issues
pertaining to the globalization debate.
Readers of this issue brief should try to think of cultural issues pertaining to
globalization in terms of conflicting values, and decide for themselves what aspects of
globalization may be positive, negative, or truly indifferent to cultures around the world.
Introduction
Globalization101.org has defined the phenomenon of globalization as the "acceleration
and intensification of economic interaction among the people, companies, and
governments of different nations." Most studies of globalization tend to focus on
changes occurring in the economic and political spheres. The details of those issues,
such as tariff rates and international agreements, have fallen within the traditional
province of government bureaucrats and political leaders.
However, the dramatic changes wrought by globalization have forced policymakers to
respond to public pressures in many new areas. Observers of globalization are
increasingly recognizing that globalization is having a significant impact on matters
such as local cultures, matters which are less tangible and hard to quantify, but often
fraught with intense emotion and controversy.
Jeremy Rifkin, a prominent critic of globalization, writes that:
"The powers that be have long believed that the world is divided into two spheres of
influence: commerce and government. Now organizations representing the cultural
sphere -- the environment, species preservation, rural life, health, food and cuisine,
religion, human rights, the family, women's issues, ethnic heritage, the arts and other
quality-of-life issues -- are pounding on the doors at world economic and political
forums and demanding a place at the table. They represent the birth of a new
"civilsociety politics" and an antidote to the forces pushing for globalization."
Generally speaking, issues surrounding culture and globalization have received less
attention than the debates which have arisen over globalization and the environment or
labor standards. In part this is because cultural issues are more subtle and sensitive, and
often more confusing.
"The homogenizing influences of globalization that "Many societies, particularly
are most often condemned by the new nationalists indigenous peoples, view culture
and by cultural romanticists are actually positive; as their richest heritage, without
globalization promotes integration and the removal which they have no roots, history
not only of cultural barriers but of many of the or soul. Its value is other than
negative dimensions of culture. Globalization is a monetary. To commodify it is to
vital step toward both a more stable world and better destroy it."
lives for the people in it."
-- Maude Barlow, "The Global
-- David Rothkopf, "In Praise of Cultural Monoculture," Earth Island
Imperialism," Foreign Policy June 22, 1997 Journal. Autumn 2001
Cultural Impacts of Globalization
The Spread of the American Political and Economic Model
In addition to cataloging the influences of globalization on culture, students of this
phenomenon should ask to what extent the effects on culture are negative or positive,
and why they are happening. The mechanisms of cultural globalization are numerous
and come from different sources.
Thinking about globalization in the broadest possible terms, there are three principal
ways that globalization can be seen to have an impact on global culture. These occur
through:
1. the development of a new culture of the globally connected professionals and
especially business elites;
2. the proliferation of pop culture—which many critics complain is primarily
American; and
3. the diffusion of beliefs and values about broader issues such as human rights and
other social mores.
Debates over these cultural issues are not simply esoteric ones either. Cultural issues
have in fact been prominent in the outcome of several trade negotiations and in other
kinds of international disputes. Each of these three ways that culture is affected by
globalization has implications for decisions made by government policymakers and
political systems.
Education in Depth
Introduction
Globalization has created the need for global citizens that have a keen awareness of the
political, economic, social, and environmental concerns of our time. Our interconnected
world demands that we not only have an understanding of our country, but an
understanding of nations, cultures, languages, and religions around the globe.
Rapid advancements in technology have made for profound paradigm shifts in almost
every arena, so much so that keeping the competitive advantage in a globalized
economy now requires going beyond traditional modes of education that create a well
informed, trained, and motivated workforce.
As Dr. Curtis J. Bonk, Professor of Instructional Systems at Indiana University and
President & Founder, CourseShare, LLC, & SurveyShare, pointed out in The World is
Open, “Anyone can now learn anything from anyone at anytime.” 1 This being the case,
the global community now faces the daunting task of preparing youth to fulfill the
challenges of an ever-transforming world.
Although many think of public schools when discussing education, private schools and
multinational corporations are playing a dynamic role in meeting the demands of those
seeking education around the globe. In essence we now see governments, international
organizations, nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations coming
together in the creation of what may be a global education superstructure.2 While not
all aspects of this multi-dimensional system are unified, they are certainly directly and
indirectly connected if for no other reason than the phenomenon of globalization itself.
However, as will we see, there is increasing collaboration among these organizations,
especially within institutions of higher education.
In recent decades, there has been a large response by both the public, private, and civil
sector to address the transforming educational needs of our youth. This response has
largely taken place on several fronts, each with varying perspectives and motivations for
wanting to transform education on a global scale. The globalization of education has
been identified as “an intertwined set of global processes affecting education, such as
worldwide discourses of human capital, economic development, and multiculturalism;
intergovernmental organizations; information and communication technology;
nongovernmental organizations; and multinational corporations.” 3
This brief will study the increasingly global manifestation of education through four
particular lenses.
The first section or lens analyzes education as a business. It looks at the work of
several multi-national private educational companies, as well as related-educational
services, and the expansion of a global education industry. This section will also address
the controversy surrounding the growth of the private education sector, and subsequent
debates concerning private and non-profit education.
The second section focuses on public sector, and pedagogical and curricular
developments related to the theory of global education. Much of this section focuses on
the notion of global citizenship as a result of both global education and the globalization
of education. We will then look at the development in non-profit educational institutions
at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Lastly, this section will discuss the
application of the International Baccalaureate standards and curriculum, as well as some
of the difficulties in developing an international curriculum standard, while considering
the present goals and themes within global education.
The third section concentrates on the role of civil society and international
organizations, such as the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural
Organization and the World Bank, in the expansion of global education. It also touches
up the increased interconnectedness between these organizations and the private sector.
Lastly, the fourth section looks at governmental policies regarding education. As the
economy of every nation is shifting in response to globalization, so too are educational
systems. However dramatic, subtle, intentional, or inadvertent, the face of education is
transforming around the globe because of the changing needs of government and
society. In this section we will take a look at how China, the United Arab Emirates, and
the United States of America are working to transform their educational systems to
create a globally competitive workforce.
Women in Depth
Introduction
The current wave of globalization has greatly improved the lives of women worldwide,
particularly in the developing world. Nevertheless, women remain disadvantaged in
many areas of life, including education, employment, health, and rights. According to
the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank, 57 percent of the
72 million primary school aged children who do not attend school are females.
Additionally, girls are four percent less likely than boys to complete primary school.1
As of 2008, 343,000 women die annually in childbirth, down from 500,000+ in 1980.
Countries with the lowest maternal mortality rate (deaths per 100,000 live births)
include Italy (3,9), Sweden (4.6) and Luxembourg (4.8), while the highest maternal
mortality rates can be found in Afghanistan (1575.1), Central African Republic (1570.4)
and Malawi (1140.1).2
The UN’s Millennium Development Goals prioritize gender equality and empowerment
of women. As part of the Millennium Goals, the international community, especially the
UN, will monitor indicators of gender equality such as levels of female enrollment at
school, participation in the workplace, and representation in decision-making positions
and political institutions.
Two key international declarations form the basis for this agenda. As part of its “Decade
for Women,” the UN published the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the
Advancement of Women in 1985 with the purpose of creating a blueprint for global
action to achieve women’s equality by the year 2000. Ten years later, the Fourth World
Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995 issued the Beijing Platform for Action
aimed to update and invigorate the world community’s commitment to gender equality.
These international conferences and documents have served to crystallize the
understanding of the unique problems women face worldwide and to promote efforts to
address them. More recently, means to monitor the progress of both have been
implemented. Other, similar documents deal with specific challenges to women’s rights.
For example, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
vows to guarantee women equal rights with men in all spheres of life, including
education, employment, health care, suffrage, nationality, and marriage.
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly voted to create a new UN entity for
gender equality and empowerment of women entitled UN Women
(http://www.unwomen.org/). Its role will be to support intergovernmental bodies in
policy formation, help member states implement new standards and regulations, and
hold the UN system accountable for gender equality.
This Issue Brief will examine the effects of globalization on women worldwide, namely
on their participation in the economy, representation in the political process, education,
health, and sexual slavery. It also will discuss perhaps globalization’s greatest benefits
to women in the internationalization of the movement for gender equality, and the legal
structure that supports this goal and recognizes women’s rights as basic human rights.
Investment in Depth
Introduction
When people think about globalization, they often first think of the increasing volume of
trade in goods and services. Trade flows are indeed one of the most visible aspects of
globalization. But many analysts argue that international investment is a much more
powerful force in propelling the world toward closer economic integration. Investment
can alter entire methods of production through transfers of knowledge, technology, and
management techniques, and thereby can initiate much more change than the simple
trading of goods.
Over the past years, foreign investment has grown at a significantly more rapid pace
than either international trade or world economic production generally. In fact, foreign
direct investment in the United States in 2009 equaled roughly $130 billion (down from
its peak $325 billion in the previous year).1 .
The tremendous growth in levels of foreign direct investment is a recent phenomenon
and is one of the most powerful effects—and causes—of globalization. In 1982, the
global total of FDI flows was $57 billion. By the year 2007, FDI flows reached $1.5
trillion,2 breaking the record established in 2000—nearly 30 times the level 25 years
earlier. (Due to the recent global financial and economic crisis, however, FDI flows
have decreased to an estimated $1.4 trillion in 2008.)3
But as with many of the other aspects of globalization, foreign investment is raising
many new questions about economic, cultural, and political relationships around the
world. Flows of investment and the rules which govern or fail to govern it can have
profound impacts upon such diverse issues as economic development, environmental
protection, labor standards, and economic and political stability.
At the same time, focusing entirely inward on domestic production to limit foreign
investment and international interaction is largely detrimental to one's economy. For
some nations, this has manifested itself in import substitution industrialization (ISI),
which refers to an international economic and trade policy based on the belief that a
nation should reduce its dependency on foreign investment and goods by domestic
production of industrial goods.
In Latin and South America, one region where ISI became common through the middle
of the 20th century, domestic employment grew and global shocks (such as recessions)
did not affect the region as harshly. But the negatives far outweigh the positives: The
industries created under ISI became futile and inefficient, and did not create the
institutions or infrastructure to maintain ISI. Additionally, countries typically
participating in ISI lacked rich enough economies to sustain the system. Had foreign
investment played a part, many of these industries might have been able to grow and
develop.4
The following Issue Brief will explain the fundamental concepts of cross-border
investment, define key terms, and explore the major controversies related to
international investment.
1 Source: Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. Washington, DC:
Organization for International Investment, 2009.
2 Source:
http://www.economist.com/markets/rankings/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9723875 3
Source: “Global FDI in Decline Due to the Financial Crisis, and a Further Drop
Expected.” UNCTAD Investment Brief 2009: 1. 4 Source: Baer, Werner. “Import
Substitution and Industrialization in Latin America: Experiences and Interpretations.”
Latin American Research Review. Vol. 7 (Spring): 95-122. 1972.
1 Source: Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. Washington, DC:
Organization for International Investment, 2009. 2 Source: 3 Source: “Global FDI in
Decline Due to the Financial Crisis, and a Further Drop Expected.” UNCTAD
Investment Brief 2009: 1.4 Source: Baer, Werner. “Import Substitution and
Industrialization in Latin America: Experiences and Interpretations.” Latin American
Research Review. Vol. 7 (Spring): 95-122. 1972.
