What is globalisation?

One can be sure that virtually every one of the 2822 academic papers on globalisation written in 1998 included its own definition, as would each of the 589 new books on the subject published in that year.

Many see it as a primarily economic phenomenon, involving the increasing interaction, or integration, of national economic systems through the growth in international trade, investment and capital flows.

However, one can also point to a rapid increase in cross-border social, cultural and technological exchange as part of the phenomenon of globalisation.

The sociologist, Anthony Giddens, defines globalisation as a decoupling of space and time, emphasising that with instantaneous communications, knowledge and culture can be shared around the world simultaneously.

A Dutch academic who maintains a good website on globalisation, http://globalize.kub.nl/ Ruud Lubbers, defines it as a process in which geographic distance becomes a factor of diminishing importance in the establishment and maintenance of cross border economic, political and socio-cultural relations

Left critics of globalisation define the word quite differently, presenting it as worldwide drive toward a globalised economic system dominated by supranational corporate trade and banking institutions that are not accountable to democratic processes or national governments.

Globalisation is an undeniably capitalist process. It has taken off as a concept in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and of socialism as a viable alternate form of economic organisation.

Try this: Globalisation is the rapid increase in cross-border economic, social, technological exchange under conditions of capitalism.

Simon Reich also explores this question in a working paper for the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame

"What is globalization? Four Possible Answers", Working Paper #261 - December 1998 - that is downloadable at www.nd.edu/~kellogg/WPS/261.pdf

A comprehensive and regularly updated bibliography on all aspects of the political economy of globalization compiled by Douglas Nelson of the Murphy Institute of Political Economy at Tulane University can also be found at www.tulane.edu/~dnelson/BIBS/GlobalBib.pdf

It attempts to characterize globalization, and its effects on poverty, the environment, gender, culture, and political structure and dynamics.

David Held and Anthony McGrew write in their entry for Oxford Companion to Politics that globalisation can be conceived as a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions, expressed in transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and power.

Their detailed conception of globalisation can be found at the site supporting their book, Global Transformations, at www.polity.co.uk/global/

For more extensive discussion of globalisation after September 11 see the links in http://www.globalisationguide.org/sb02.html

When did globalisation begin?

There is no agreed starting point, but understanding of globalisation is helped by considering the following.

The first great expansion of European capitalism took place in the 16th century, following the first circumnavigation of the earth in 1519 to 1521.

There was a big expansion in world trade and investment in the late nineteenth century. This was brought to a halt by the First World War and the bout of anti-free trade protectionism that led to the Great Depression in 1930. Some see this period as an interruption to the process of globalisation commenced in the late 19th century.

A sense that the world was united was generated by the establishment of the International Date Line and world time zones, together with the near global adoption of the Gregorian calendar between 1875 and 1925. During that period, international standards were also agreed for telegraphy and signalling.

The end of the Second World War brought another great expansion of capitalism with the development of multinational companies interested in producing and selling in the domestic markets of nations around the world. The emancipation of colonies created a new world order. Air travel and the development of international communications enhanced the progress of international business.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the cold war between the forces of capitalism and socialism with capitalism triumphant. The development of the internet made possible the organisation of business on a global scale with greater facility than ever before.

An excellent paper exploring this, and other issues relating to globalisation, is written by Mauro Guillen, at The Wharton School and Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania The paper, Is Globalization Civilizing, Destructive Or Feeble? A Critique Of Five Key Debates In The Social-Science Literature can be downloaded from:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/show_paper.cfm?id=938