Globalization: Definitions, Theories, and Institutions

Vocabulary flashcards covering key globalization concepts, scholars, institutions, and outcomes described in the notes.

Globalization

The process of increasing integration and interdependence across the world, driven by technology and free-market capitalism, affecting economies, cultures, and politics in uneven and contested ways.

Time-space compression

The idea that distance and time barriers shrink due to advances in transport and communication, bringing distant places and peoples into closer, faster contact.

Golden straight jacket

Thomas Friedman’s term for a set of policies countries adopt to integrate into the global economy, creating growth opportunities but constraining government policy choices.

Neoliberalism

A political–economic philosophy emphasizing free markets, deregulation, privatization, and limited government intervention, often promoted by international financial institutions.

Transnational corporations (TNCs)

Firms that operate in multiple countries, linking economies through production, investment, and markets.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

Non-profit groups that operate independently of governments, ranging from local to international, focused on humanitarian, development, or advocacy goals.

Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)

Organizations whose members are sovereign states, such as the United Nations, formed to pursue collective interests.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

An IGO that provides loans to countries facing balance-of-payments problems, often with policy conditions (conditionalities) attached.

Structural adjustment program (SAP)

IMF/World Bank conditions requiring reforms (e.g., currency devaluation, privatization) that aim to stabilize economies but can cause disruption.

Conditionalities

Policy conditions attached to IMF/World Bank loans that borrowers must implement to receive funding.

Local–global interconnection

The way local communities are shaped by and contribute to global processes through flows of money, people, ideas, and goods.

Deepening connections

The intensification and widening of relationships across borders, leading to more frequent and meaningful global interactions.

Interdependence

Mutual reliance among countries and actors due to flows of trade, finance, information, and people.

Global flows (money, goods, services, people, images, ideas)

The movement of capital, commodities, labor, and cultural information across borders that characterizes economic and cultural globalization.

Multidimensional globalization (Steger)

The view that globalization operates across political, economic, cultural, and social dimensions, not in a single realm.

Removal of constraints

Malcolm Waters’ idea that globalization erodes social and cultural boundaries and barriers to exchange, enabling greater mobility and interaction.

Uneven/contradictory globalization

The notion that globalization affects different places and people in diverse and sometimes conflicting ways.

Consciousness of the global whole

Awareness that events globally are interconnected and that personal identity and life choices are shaped by global processes.

Technology’s role in globalization

Advances in communication and transportation (internet, satellites, planes) that enable faster information exchange and movement of people and goods.

Actors in globalization (individuals, corporations, nation-states)

Different players that drive globalization: empowered individuals, globalizing corporations, and governments interacting across borders.

Local transformation through globalization

How global processes reshape local economies, cultures, and communities, creating new opportunities and challenges in everyday life.

Globalization as narrative and process

Globalization is both a set of observable social processes (flows, exchanges) and a way of conceptualizing and talking about how the world works.