W3. What is the globalization? / Heo Yoon Jae

Summary

Globalization refers to the way in which the world perceives or accepts different countries. Author of the article said globalization has two ironical features, it is generally but also specific. The reason of globalization’s general feature is it could be found in any parts of the world as a number of disciplinary positions as well as worldviews. And also globalization is specific because scholars are careful about the demarcation of the judgement of what has come to be called globalization.

Each scholars’ point of view of globalization is vary widely. They said globalization is an object, process or ongoing. The author argues that the definition of globalization is difficult because each book, article, and scholar have different definitions about globalization. But they also said each of the definition of globalization has common feature which is they tried to view the globalization as a multiple-dimensional point of view. And the author claims that globalization has three dimensions, political globalization, cultural globalization and economic globalization.

First, political globalization is organization and operation of faction to solve the economic, social, cultural, military and environmental issues that one or more countries share. This organizations’ aim is to solve multi-national problems by understand and respect each other country. In this case, UN(United Nations), NATO(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and IMF (International Monetary Fund) are included.

Second dimension is cultural globalization. The feature of cultural globalization is it is processed as in personal level. Cultural globalization affects everyday life, such as the world's preferences, tastes similar to the likes of McDonald's or Starbucks and the world's fashion is similar to that of Nike or Adidas. It is expressed as a cultural homogenization in the sense that the tastes of the world become similar. However, in a specific point of view, cultural globalization is also proceeding in local and locally in their own way. So it is called glocalization.

Third is economic globalization. Cooperates turned to global markets, not domestic markets, to earn more profits. Because of this, modern economic transactions tend to be more global. Through economic globalization, global companies have overpower based on capitals and it is a negative side effect of economic globalization

Globalization was started at many centuries ago, but accelerated in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in 1980s. Eventually, the capitalism makes peoples can have a broader view to world. And the invention of the internet can overcome the confines of space and time. They created an environment where the nation could become more open-minded and interact quickly. As technology develops, the pace of globalization is becoming more immediate and faster. Individuals need to become more conscious and sensitive to stay abreast of these globalization processes.

Interesting points

The author said, “Globalization is both general and very specific.” And this is very impressed to me. I think Globalization and glocalizaition is symbol of general and specific feature. It seems globalization makes us to easy to understand international relationship, but like in our everyday life it is important to consider individuals points of view to global thing.

Discussion

When the world economy boomed, the nation seemed to be trying to get closer to each other. However, in the middle of 2000, there were many serious global issues such as 2008 World Financial Crisis and IS. Because of that, countries have become selfish unlike ever before. British withdrew from the EU, and in the United States, Donald Trump was elected. In this situation, can globalization develop in a positive direction?