Globalization

1
Globalization

• A set of processes that are widening, deepening,
  and accelerating the interconnectedness among
  societies.
• Creates a global village borders diminish and
  people become a single community the world is
  an integrated and interdependent whole.
• Does this mean the end of the sovereign
  nation-state?

Notice it doesnt say political system
2
The borderless world

• This is the Global Information Age, led by growth
  in communications technology
• Cell phones
• Computers Internet businesses/news, cyberspace
  relationships, blogs (opinions)
• Creates a digital divide between North South
• Agenda setting the media
• tells us what is important
• and what is not

3
Which part of the world controls the media? Is
this a source of soft power for the North? Who
controls the media in the North?
10 corporations
4
What has been globalized?

• Nationalism
• Religion
• Human rights issues
• Migration
• Health (AIDS, drug use, etc.)
• Culture
• Consumerism

5
Globalization of trade open, free trade will
lead to global integration, which will then
affect politics, human rights, etc.

• World Trade Organization
• 148 members (70 of the world)
• Successor to GATT, which reduced tariffs (tax
  imposed by govts on imported goods)
• WTO working to reduce non-tariff barriers
  (non-tax govt restrictions)
• Trade integration extent by which world trade
  volume grows faster than world GDP ? creates
  interdependence? globalization

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Map 11.1
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The Global South Trade

• Share of global trade has grown (from 23 in 1985
  to 28 in 2005)
• Its share of global exports in manufactured
  products has also grown (from 10 in 1980 to 27
  in 2005)
• But 2/3 of this growth has come from only 6
  countries (Asian tigers, or NICs) what about
  the rest of the Global South?

8
Multinational Corporations

• Primary agents of globalization of production and
  their goal is. PROFIT
• 53,000 multinational corporations and 450,000
  foreign subsidiaries of national corps.
• Strategic corporate alliances (what we could call
  monopolies in the US)
• Rival nation-states in terms of resources most
  MNCs have more many than most countries of the
  Global South
• Difficult for states to control states become
  reliant on the jobs

9
Globalization of finance increasing
transnationalization or centralization of
financial markets through the worldwide
integration of capital flows the international
monetary system (currency exchange, investment,
loans, etc.)

• Borrowing, lending, currency trade, commercial
  banking, foreign direct investment
• MUCH higher turnover in foreign exchange (/- 2
  trillion day) than trade
• Arbitrage selling of one currency and purchase
  of another to make a profit on the exchange rate
• Speculative, based on projected currency
  valuations
• Keeps currencies balanced when it works, destroys
  them when it doesnt

10

• Digital world economy has made national markets
  extremely volatile and vulnerable.
• Not centralized in any state - controlled by IMF,
  World Bank under the
• Capital mobility hypothesis the free flow of
  investment capital across borders has led to the
  globalization of finance
• Why would a country open their borders to
  investment capital and enter this volatile
  market, making them vulnerable?
• often required for membership in a regional
  organization or trade block, or to receive direct
  foreign investment

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Critics say

• Leads to an increase in the north-south gap poor
  get poorer while rich get richer, both within
  countries and the world overall (dualism)
• Leads to a loss of cultural diversity the world
  becomes the same
• Could lead to an erosion of sovereignty unless we
  control it can we control it?

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• How does globalization change the nature of the
  state-centered international system?
• Will globalization lead to global governance
  (world govt.)?
• Will globalization lead to a backlash a renewal
  of state power over cultural/economic forces
  seeking to control it?
• Is globalization a potential threat to national
  security?