W3. What is Globalization?

What is gologalization?

1. Summary:
Globalization could be considered as two side, general and specific. It is general because it almost inevitably covers a number of disciplinary standpoints as well as worldviews to be found in different parts of the world. It is specific as part of globalization: global governance, global citizenship, human rights, migration and creation of diasporas, transnational connections of various kinds and so on.

In systematic way of analyzing globalization, we attempt in what follows to supply as coherent a statement as is possible in full recognition of the disputed nature of the concept. Some of the disputes arise from differences in perspective across the world. Velho said that the study of globalization is marked by the great mingling of disciplinary orientations, and the resultant debate has been and still is being conducted on a site of major disciplinary mutations, such that it may well be called a transdisciplinary development.

As the parameters of the general process of globalization, there are two parameters, consciousness and connectivity. It is here maintained that increasing global consciousness runs in complex ways, hand in hand, so to speak, with increasing connectivity. Huntington predicted that, with the assumed end of the Cold War, centred as it was upon the conflict between the United States and (former) USSR, the major world conflicts from there on would not be ideologically based, but rather focused more on civilizational issues. It must, however, be emphasized that the growing perception of an Islamic threat to the West (in particular to the United States) had been evident since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The drama of the conflict between the West and mainly Middle Eastern Islam lay relatively dormant between the Iranian Revolution, which brought into power an aggressive theocracy in Iran, and the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. For much of the 1990s and indeed up to the present time, there has been considerable talk of the ‘real’ clash or conflict, having to do more with scarce resources, in particular oil, and more recently, water. It was in this way that it was possible for many to think of increasing connectivity as well as global consciousness as being either economic-materialistic or about policies and ideologies surrounding access to such resources. To be sure, it would be extremely foolish to deny the significance of the material resource aspects of recent international conflicts or to neglect the great salience of military and strategic considerations.

In the dimensions of globalization, there are the economic, the political and the cultural. The central thrust of this brief comment on the relationship between economic and cultural factors is that, somewhat paradoxically, the expansion of capitalism around the world has of seeming necessity involved the elevation of the cultural themes. This well illustrates the complexity of thinking in multidimensional terms yet at the same time brings sharply into focus the poverty of thinking in unidimensional terms. In other words, many sociologists, speaking as prominent participants in (some would even say, the initiators of) the debate about globalization, have more often than not overlooked the very important social aspects of this general theme.

As the form of globalization, Immanuel Wallerstei said that the world could have become singular through the activities of an ideologically based, vanguard organization, such as the Soviet Communist Party, or through the expansion of German Fascism. The most important consideration at the present time is that, in the 1970s and subsequently, Wallerstein has ruled out the argument that the modern world could be systematized and co-ordinated along imperial lines. From Wallerstein’s point of view, the present world-system – or what some other writers have called world society, the global ecumene, global society and so on – has been produced primarily by the expansion of capitalism over the past fi ve or six hundred years. In so far as we have rejected the unidimensional, economic approach to globalization (a term which we have already emphasized, but Wallerstein and his numerous followers have largely rejected or considered as only a particular phase of capitalistic expansion), we are constrained to think of the overall process of globalization in a more multifaceted way.

Globalization must be considered as many dimensions. First, and most obviously, there is what can, for simplicity’s sake, be called the international-systemic aspect. Second, there is the aspect which covers the most general feature of global-human life, namely the concept of humanity. Third, there is another component which we have called (the totality of) individual selves. Finally, there is the principal ‘container’ of human beings for many centuries, namely the nation-state. It should be hastily emphasized that this societal reliance upon the individual is a phenomenon that can all too easily be transformed into a manipulation of the individual and her/his identity. In fact, the growth in the manipulation of individual identities by the state is all too apparent in much of the Western world.

Characterize globalization:
First, globalization consists primarily of two major directional tendencies, increasing global connectivity and increasing global consciousness. Consciousness does not imply consensus, merely a shared sense of the world as a whole.
Second, globalization has a particular form, one which has been, to all intents and purposes, consummated by the founding of the United Nations organization. This means that, like the operations of the UN, globalization is focused upon four points of reference: nation-states; world politics; individuals; and humankind.
Third, globalization is constituted by four major facets of human life – namely, the cultural, the social, the political and the economic. These dimensions are in reality heavily intertwined, one or two aspects being more prominent at any given time or place.
We have also highlighted the importance of not reifying globalization. Globalization is not a thing, not an ‘it’. Recognition of its conceptual status, as opposed to its being an ontological matter, is of prime importance. The very globality of this talk about globalization must surely lead to an appreciation of the impossibility of definitively answering, in an essentialistic way, the question, ‘What is globalization?’ This should not, however, be regarded as an open invitation for a proliferation of narratives of globalization as a matter of course.

 

2. New, interesting or unusual items I learned

I knew more about globalization academically than superficially, and knew the impact on globalization in detail. I have gained a better understanding of the phenomenon of globalization, and I have been able to look at the effects of globalization to individuals, a humankind and a nation-state.
Globalization has a particular form, consummated by the founding of the United Nations organization. Globalization is focused upon four points of reference: nation-states; world politics; individuals; and humankind. Also, globalization is constituted by four major dimensions, the cultural, the social, the political and the economic. These dimensions are in reality heavily intertwined, one or two aspects being more prominent at any given time or place. As I learned the form, the points and the dimensions of globalization, I can analyze global phenomena more academically than before.

 

3. Discussion point

We could easily find globalization’s phenomena in our life. For example, McDonald’s hamburger franchise entered to South Korea. A lot of foreigner workers come to Korea. And we can use I phone which not made in Korea.
Also, we learned about the form, the points and the dimensions of globalization. Using these knowledge, analyze the globalization’s phenomena in our life.