Geographers Of Globalization

Key Points

• If geography is, as was often suggested in the past, a discipline in distance, and if the distance is becoming less significant, are we approaching the “end of geography”?
• Because the world is increasingly being economically dominated by three large regions—North America, Europe, and East Asia—is it becoming characterized by greater spatial inequalities?
• Opinions about whether globalization contributes to a better or a worse world vary but are closely related to individuals’ ideological perspectives, especially their political—left or right wing—inclinations.
• Is it desirable, or even possible, to think about globalization in a relatively objective way
• “New markets have arisen: global markets in services; global consumer markets with global brands; and deregulated, globally linked financial markets.
• New participants have emerged: most important among these are transnationals, the WTO, and the several regional trading blocs; there have also been numerous corporate mergers and acquisitions.
• Faster and less costly methods of communication have developed: the Internet and smartphones facilitate the transmission of information, and there are also ongoing technological advances in the movement of goods by air, rail, and road
• New policies and practices are being put into place concerning matters such as human rights and environmental issues.

Introducing Globalization

• Human geography understanding requires an awareness of past physical and human geographies
• But these do not provide a complete understanding either
• Many observers consider that a new set of processes, called globalization, is the most important change or set of changes affecting human geography
• We are not able to talk intelligibly on a global scale as well as in local and regional terms
• Contemporary world values
• Our long history of living distinctive lives and creating distinctive landscapes in essentially separate parts of the world may be ending
• Human geographers are quick to point out that a key factor is humans’ increasing ability to overcome the friction of distance
  • We can move our goods and ourselves from one place to another much more rapidly than ever before
  • Ideas and capital can travel anywhere in the world almost instantaneously
• Globalization increases both the quantities of goods, information, and people moving across natural boundaries and the speed with which they do so
• The sense of place-to-place difference is vanishing as a few dominant brands become more ubiquitous
• Financial homogenization
• We can purchase goods or local currency almost anyone in the world using only one major credit card
• Some observers go as far as to predict the emergence of a global village, a global culture
• We do appear to be entering a new era involving the creation of global landscapes
• Similar settings may be patronized by people with similar lifestyles and similar aspirations
• At the center of increasing interaction and homogenization is the capitalist mode of production
• Globalization is considered from cultural, political, and economic perspectives
• A certain set of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors is spreading reflecting a more eccentric environmental ethic
• An increasing insistence on gender equality
• A better understanding of the linguistic, religious, and ethnic bases for differences between groups of people
• We are seeing the extension of some American characteristics to other parts of the world
• Many countries are working together for strategic reasons
• Economically, the connections between different parts of the world are constantly increasing in terms of product movement and capital investment

The Local Still Matters

• A brief reflection on our personal lives makes it clear distance continues to play a central role in everyday life
• Home, community, friends, neighbors, etc.
• Distance has NOT become irrelevant
• The local has not been submerged under a tidal wave of globalization
• Many groups of people want to see their specific culture recognized and their particular religion attain some status
• The forces associated with globalization are definitely powerful, and their impacts are not doubted, but they are not the only forces at work

Geography as a Discipline in Distance

• A standard assumption in human geography has long been that location is not random but follows a pattern
• Sometimes the phenomena of human geography are close to one another and sometimes they are separated by great distances
• Spatial regularity enables us to make sense of those locations
• The principle of least effort suggests all our behavior aims to minimize effort
• Thus, location decisions are made to minimize the effort required to overcome the friction of distance
• Human geographers agree that many of our current distribution patterns reflect this friction
• The first law of geography noted namely that near things are more related than distant things
• A distance can be measured in different ways including physical, time, cognitive, and social

Converging Locations

• The friction of distance seems to be decreasing in many instances
• Even to the point where at least some distances will become frictionless
• The idea that travel times typically fall with improvements in transportation technology has been labeled time-space convergence
• There are locational changes in relative space
• A convergence rate can be calculated at the average rate at which the time required to move from one location to another decreases over time
• With the laying of the first telegraph cable across the North Atlantic seabed in 1858, the “distance” between Europe and North America reduced from weeks to minutes
• Now, information can be transmitted around the world almost instantaneously
• A cursory glance at the world shows that distance still matters
• In many instances, the same glance can show that distance matters somewhat less than it did in the past
  • The reason is that friction decreases as communication technologies improve
• Potent examples of an essentially frictionless distance are e-mail and the internet
• 80% of the world’s population use a mobile phone and about 30% use the internet
  • A digital divide evident between rich and poor countries

Overcoming Distance: Transportation

• Complex components of the human landscape, transport systems use specific modes to move people and materials
• To allow for spatial interaction
• To link centers of supply and demand
• The global movement of goods relies primarily on water transportation
• Although road and rail are needed for movement to and from ports
• Transport systems in much of the less developed world are largely deficient has a direct economic effect
• This limits activities such as commercial agriculture and mineral production
• In some countries, a transport system has been constructed to encourage national unity and open up new settlement regions
• Nineteenth-century geographers such as Ratzel and Hettner viewed transport routes as a landscape feature
• The early twentieth-century French school of human geography regarded transport as a critical component of the geography of circulation
• Transport technology was largely unexplored until the 1950s when several geographers published studies on transport
• The rise of spatial analysis involving quantitative and modeling studies increased transport awareness
• Transport geography has a notably positivistic flavor and has been relatively unaffected by humanist, Marxist, and other types of social theory

Evolution of Transport Systems

• Three processes characterize the evolution of transport systems
• Intensification (filling of space)
• Diffusion (spread across space)
• Articulation (development of more efficient spatial structures)
• Changes in transport do not occur at a steady pace but at times of revolutionary
• Transport systems change in response to
• Advances in technology
• Various social and political factors

Evolution of Transport Systems in Britain

• The first organized transport system in Britain was created by the Romans between 100 and 400 CE for political and military reasons
• The Roman system focused specifically on facilitating rapid movement between Long and the key Roman centers
• Once the Romans withdrew from Britain, their systems fell into disuse because they did not serve the needs of the local population
• A new national transit system reflecting the national interest emerged in the form of carriers and coach services
• Two innovations diffused rapidly across Britain: (both complementary rather than competitive)
• Turnpike Roads
  • An organizational innovation
  • Charged tolls
  • Transferred the cost of road maintenance from local residents to actual road users
  • A system could be set up at any time
  • Around 1700, they diffused rapidly
  • Better suited for the movement of people and information
• Navigable Waterways
  • Canals
  • A technological innovation
  • During the early industrial period, canals played an important role in serving mines and ironworks
  • After 1790, they were the dominant transport mode
  • Best suited for moving heavy raw materials
• In the twentieth century, railways appeared and air transport added a new dimension to overall transport
• Neither of the innovations made a long-term impact
• The first British railway was completed in 1825
• Relatively local and related to the industry
• After 1850, railways linked all urban centers
  • Dominated British transport until 1920
• Railway construction in Britain was organized and financed by small groups of entrepreneurs with minimal government intervention
• Elsewhere in Europe and overseas, governments typically player larger roles in railway construction
• Most parts of the developed world have transport systems that include navigable waterways, railways, roads, and air traffic
• Are continually changing in response to technology and demand
• Transport innovations within and between countries serve to decrease the friction of distance thus facilitating globalization

Modes of Transport

• Some modes of transport evolved at different times and under very different human geographic circumstances
• Eventually combining to create an integrated system
• Route duplication and a general lack of coordination may combine to create a whole system
• Most drastic change takes place very rapidly
• Contemporary China, between 2001 and 2005, spent more on transport than in the previous 50 years

Water Transportation

• Water is an inexpensive method of moving people and goods over long distances
• It offers minimal resistance to movement because waterways are often available for use at no charge
• It is slow, may be circuitous, and not all areas are accessible by water
• Topographic features such as variations in relief can be a major obstacle
• Weather conditions (especially freezing and storms) cause problems for weather transport
• The Suez Canal reduced the distance between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans
• Larger vessels will be able to be carried
• Canals continue to be a critical component of many continental transportation systems

Railway Transportation

• Land transportation includes railway and roads
• Railways are the second least expensive form of transportation after water
• Best suitable for moving bulk materials when waterways are not available
• Local topography can make railway construction and maintenance expensive
• Some railways are considered a powerful symbolic achievement
• Bullet trains in Chinese cities reduce travel times
• Australia’s railway line between Adelaide and Darwin
• The world’s longest high-speed route links Beijing with the southern commercial center of Guangzhou
• Ongoing efforts to develop an integrated rail network
• Much of the recent growth in Europe has been high-speed rail
• Most planned African projects are aimed at the movement of goods, not passengers

Road Transportation

• Roads are typically less expensive than railways
• Favored more in regional planning and related schemes
• Most of the internal movement within Europe is by road
• With inland waterways second and railways third
• The construction of bridges often reduces road distances
• The most drastic examples of recent and ongoing bridge construction are in China

Air Transportation

• Transportation by air is the most expensive method
• Rapid
• Favored for small-bulk and high-value products
• Small countries tend to favor maintaining a national airline for reasons of status and tourist development
• Airport construction and maintenance are funded by governments
• Even a terminal in Beijing that is 3 km long and 17 percent larger than all five of London Heathrow’s terminals is deemed inadequate
• China is a communist country with secretive planning and no significant public input → major infrastructural change can happen at great speed and without serious consideration of the impact on the people’s lives and the environment

Containers

• A major development in ocean and land transportation is the technology of the shipping container
• Developed in the 1950s by Malcolm P. McLean
• Currently, more than 300 million containers are used
• The widespread use of containers has resulted in dramatically reducing transportation costs
• Despite the extra costs of new storage facilities, different cranes, changes at ports, and changes to trains and trucks
• Theft is reduced
• The storage and sorting of breakbulk cargo are eliminated
• Time taken to load and unload is halved
• “The important role played by containers in facilitating economic globalization is difficult to exaggerate
• The subtitle of a book on container shipping, “How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger” is appropriate “

Overcoming Distance: Trade

• Transport systems decrease the friction of distance and facilitate the movement of people and materials
• Technological and organizational advances in transport are key factors promoting and reflecting the globalization
• Trade has become an increasingly important part of the global economy
• Since 1945 trade has increased much more rapidly than production
• A clear indication of how much more interconnected the world has become
• Trade can take place if the difference between the cost of production in one area and the market price in another will at least cover the cost of movement
• Domestic trade is identical to international trade
• The major difference is that it is less likely to be hindered by human-created barriers

Factors Affecting Trade

• The movement of goods from one location to another reflects spatial variations in resources, technology, and culture
• The single most relevant variable related to trade is the distance
• There are many variables that affect the quality of trade
• Trade is highly vulnerable to the friction of distance
• The specific resource base of a given area (needed materials are imported and surplus materials exported)
• the size and quality of the labor force (a country with a small labor force but plentiful resources is likely to produce and export raw materials)
• the amount of capital in a country (higher capital prompts export of high-quality, high-value goods)
• All these variables are closely linked to level of economic development
• Trade between more and less developed countries is often an unequal exchange
• The former export goods to the latter at prices above their values while the latter export goods to the former at prices below their value
• Less developed countries are inclined to excessive specialization in a small number of primary products or even a single staple
• Many developed countries may also specialize, but they do so in manufactured goods
• The difference reflects the technologically induced division of labor between the two worlds
• Less developed countries’ dependence on the more developed countries as trading partners is central to world-systems theory
• The majority of the world trade moves between developed countries
• The rise of the newly industrializing countries is affecting trade flows

Regional Integration

• Since trade occurs across international boundaries, it can be regulated
• Most governments actively intervene in the importing and exporting of goods
• Trade barriers to protect domestic production against relatively inexpensive imports may be assessed
  • The most popular form of regulation involves the imposition of a tariff
• Globalization, especially through the activities of the World Trade Organization (WTO), promotes global multilateral free trade
• This does not mean barriers no longer exist
• Groupings of states establish additional barriers designed to help them compete in the global market and to expand potential markets
• This regional integration has become more important since the end of World War II
• Until recently, integration was limited, but now there is compelling evidence of a widespread desire among separate states to unite economically
• The world is therefore increasingly divided into trade blocs
• Economic integration now involves some degree of political integration
• There are five stages in the process of integration
• The loosest form of integration is the free trade area, consisting of a group of states that have agreed to remove artificial barriers, such as import and export duties, to allow movement and trade among themselves.
  • Each state retains a separate policy on trade with other countries.
  • Two major examples of free trade areas are NAFTA, consisting of Canada, Mexico, and the United States and established in 1994, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), originally comprising Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand and established in 1967.
• The second stage in international economic integration is the creation of a customs union, in which member states not only remove trade barriers between themselves but also impose a common tariff barrier.
  • There is free trade within the union and a common external tariff on goods from other states.
• A common market has all the characteristics of a customs union and allows the factors of production, such as capital and labour, to flow freely among member states.
  • Members also adopt a common trade policy towards non-member states.
• There are two levels of integration beyond the common market that groups of states may achieve.
  • An economic union is a form of inter-national economic integration that includes a common market and harmonization of certain economic policies, such as currency controls and tax policies.
• At the level of economic integration member states have common social policies and some supranational body is established with authority over all.
  • The extent to which individual states may be prepared to sacrifice national identity and independence to achieve full economic integration is not yet clear.”
• The most developed example of regional economic integration is the EU
• Established a single European market in 1992 with 28 member states
• The importance of transportation as a means of encouraging integration is evident
• As the process of regional integration continues, states left outside the major groupings may suffer economically
• NAFTA
• Elimination of trade barriers among members increased free trade, and increased investment opportunities
• Mercosur, the South American economic grouping, was formed in 1991
• Argentina
• Brazil
• Paraguay
• Uruguay
• Venezuela
• Bolivia (likely to gain full member status in the future)
• Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador as associate members
• Mexico expected to move from observer to associate status
• The ASEAN currently consists of 10 countries
• Brunei
• Cambodia
• Indonesia
• Laos
• Malaysia
• Burma
• the Philippines
• Thailand
• Singapore
• Vietnam
  • Free trade encouraged between members
  • Moving towards free trade with China and strengthening connections with Japan and India
  • The ASEAN currently consists of 10 countries

Overcoming Distance: Transnationals

• Transnational corporations are distinguished from earlier business organizations by several important characteristics
• They are able to command and control production and sales at a global scale
• Can relocate production and other facilities with relative ease
• Functionally integrated
• Able to benefit from geographic variations in capital, knowledge, labor, resources, natural regulations, taxes
• Only 20 countries have a Gross National Income (GNI) larger than the sales of the top transnational Walmart
• Top 10 Transnationals, 2014, & GNI
  • Norway (522 US Billions)
  • Walmart (476 US Billions)
  • Royal Dutch Shell (460 US Billions)
  • Sinopec (457 US Billions)
  • Iran (448 US Billions)
  • China National Petroleum Corporation (432 US Billions)
  • Austria (412 US Billions)
  • EXXON MOBIL (408 US Billions)
  • BP (396 US Billions)
  • Venezuela (382 US Billions)
• Transnationals are able to adjust their activities within and between countries
• They can take advantage of variations in factors such as land costs and labor costs at both scales
• They undermine national economies because they are able to organize movements of information, technology, and capital between countries
• Can take advantage of site production and profit in countries with relatively low wages and taxation
• Different transnationals carry out different proportions of their production at home and abroad
• For several of the large automobile companies, about 50% of employment is foreign
• Swiss-based Nestle and UK-based BAT Industries are closer to 90%
• Most of the transnationals are based in the US, Europe, (UK and Germany), or Japan
• Some have home bases in Asia’s newly industrializing countries or even in countries that are usually regarded as host countries for foreign direct investment (FDI)
  • The investment of capital into manufacturing plants located in countries other than the one where the company is based
• The countries that are major sources of FDI are also major hosts
• One way to identify economic globalization is to focus on the amount and location of the capital flows
• Which has grown more rapidly than international trade since World War II
• In most cases, investors and the recipients are located in the more developed countries
• A transnational will usually have its headquarters in the more developed world but locate its manufacturing activities in the less developed world
• Where wages and environmental and safety standards are lower
• This division of production referred to as the international division of labor
• Most transitional products fall into two groups
• Technologically sophisticated
• Involve mass production and mass marketing
• Much of the recent growth in trade reflects the increasing role of services- commercial, financial, & business- conducted by transnationals

Overcoming Distance: Transmitting Information

• The most important technology developed in recent years contributing to economic globalization are those that facilitate the almost instantaneous transmission of information regardless of distance
• Global ICT growth between 2001 and 2015 are exemplified by mass communications media and the use of cables, faxes, satellites, and information communication technologies

The Digital Divide

• The importance of being able to access information through ICTS is made evident by the case of Finland
• Finland has declared Internet access a basic human right
• The opportunity to access communications media is not uniformly distributed throughout the world and the availability of ICTs differs significantly from place to place
• The idea of the digital divide can be understood as the gap between those with the most and those with the least access to computers and the Internet
• This divide is closely related to place, gender, income, and level of education
• Typically a difference between urban and rural areas within a country
• The growing digital divide makes rural economic prosperity increasingly elusive
• Canadian living in rural areas already have incomes well below their urban counterparts
• Earnings gap exists
• Communities that cannot plug into the high-speed digital economy cannot attract new businesses that rely on basic services such as electronic invoicing, Internet conferencing, and large digital file transfers
• The digital divide is expressed as a type of poverty

Rise of Social Media

• Interactive dialogue is a new dimension of technology overcoming distance from the proliferation of social media
• Blogs were the first form of social media
• Soon followed by sites that allowed a specific type of content to be shared
  • YouTube for videos / Flickr for images
• The emergence of Facebook and MySpace as social networking sites allowed people to input personal information and enable access to selected people
• Sites like these have the most influence on young people in more developed countries
• The top three social networks - Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn collectively receive more than several billion visits each month
• Educational institutions may use sites to connect students from different parts of the world allowing for a better understanding of different lives in different places
• Geographers often argue that field trips promote appreciation of other places and peoples
• Virtual field trips may make a similar contribution
• Good reason to believe that improved understanding of others may contribute to a reduction of conflict
• Networking has always been key to product development and marketing
• Meetings can be helped without the need for participants to travel, saving both time and money
• Potential customers can be contacted and current customers kept informed of developments
• Social media are also used effectively by groups planning demonstrations, civil unrest, and revolutionary uprisings
• Some governments attempt to block such opportunities for mass social interaction
• Social media are not widely used to organize people for peaceful or violent protests
• The long-term impact of social media is undeniable
• Nevertheless, for many people and businesses, face-to-face interaction in a shared physical space continues to have real value
  • The nuances of body language are typically absent from social media interactions
  • Lack the capacity for empathy and understanding
• Much merit in both online and offline social interactions and one odes not effectively replace the other

Interpreting, Conceptualizing, and Measuring Globalization

• Globalization is a highly contested term and a much-debated topic
• Principal interpretations advocated by leading scholars
• What globalization is and is not and how it is and is not transforming the world
• Focus on how globalization can be measured and thus determine regional variations

Three Interpretations

FIRST

• The first interpretation was put forward by Thomas L. Friedman, the notes New York Times columnist

• He asserts that the world is now what he describes as “flat,” a result of improved communications and free movement of capital

• In this view, the global economy has become a level playing field for the first time

  • Societies around the world conform to free-market principles and practice

• Friedman argues that globalization is intensifying

  SECOND

• Canadian philosopher and novelist John Ralston Saul sees the world quite differently

• He suggests that globalization is in retreat instead of advancements in innovation or a neo-conservative ideology

• Saul sees a series of regional dislocations and inequalities resulting from the various successes and failures of globalization

• Most notably benefitting the more developed world and further disadvantaging the less developed world

• Saul’s book, The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World, reads like a manifesto

• Designed to encourage the reader to care bout the depopulation in North America

• Get information on the inexorable spread and growth of Walmart

• Learn about the plight of the poor in the less developed world

  • All of which are understood to be evidence of the failings of globalization

• Not only is it in retreat, but it has also failed to make the world a better place

• In his book, Saul dates the onset of globalization from 1971 claiming that it had emerged fully grown

• This year was the year the US went off the gold standard and settled on a floating dollar with the currency of other locations

• In the mid 19990s, trade liberalization had proceeded apace

• Global Markets dominated and the WTO was in place to preside over the new global economy

• Saul contends a key defeat for globalization was the 2003 US decision to invade Iraq without the support of other major powers

• It suggested that globalization might reverse because of an increasingly nationalistic US foreign policy

• “What does the future hold if globalization is in retreat?

• A return to a world dominated by nation-states seems unlikely

THIRD

• Pankaj Ghemawat (2011) wrote World 3.0
• His basic thesis is that globalization is exaggerated
• We live in a world of semi-globalization
• Less than 1% of American companies have foreign operations
• FDI is only 9% of all fixed investment
• 60 years ago half of the world’s car production was controlled by just two companies; today, six companies share half the production.
• Trade between countries is 42% greater if those countries speak the same language, and 47% greater if they belong to the same trading bloc
• Ghemawat acknowledges that there is much disagreement as to whether globalization is increasing or lessening
• He notes that distance- geography- matters heavily

Three Globalization Theses

• The hyperglobalist thesis views globalization as a new age
• Skeptics question the very existence of globalization
• In between these two contrasting viewpoints is the transformationalist thesis

Measuring Globalization

• Measuring globalization objectively
• The KOF Index of Globalization, published annually by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute annually conceives of Globalization in terms
• Economic
• Social or cultural
• Political
• Process of creating networks of connections among actors at multi-continental distances mediated through a variety of flows including
• People
• Information and ideas
• Capital and goods
• Globalization is conceptualized as a process
• Erodes national boundaries
• Integrates national economies
• Cultures
• Technologies and governance
• Produce complex relations of mutual interdependence
• KOF’s selection of specific indicators is intended to be representative of globalization processes, not comprehensive
• It is critical of the chosen indicators and the weight attached to each and to suggest alternatives
• Marked increase of globalization at the end of the Cold War
• A slight slowdown of globalization related to the 9/11 terror attacks
• A significant setback caused by the 2008 global recession
• Nine of the most globalized countries are European, Canada ranks twelfth, and the United States is the thirty-second
• The bottom ten are a mix of African, Asian, and vert small countries
• Detailed rankings are subject to change from year to year and thus need to be interpreted with some caution '
• Ghemawat measures globalization through economic variables
• A recent report by Ghemawat and Steven A. Altman (2013) reports that globalization has lessened since the economic uncertainties that began in 2008
• The conclusion is reached through the calculation of a Depth Index of Globalization (DIG)
• The index measures globalization for 139 countries (which accounts for 99% of global gross domestic product and 95% of the global population)
• The index is calculated through various factors
• Trade
• Capital movement
• Transmission of information
• Population movement
• In 2013, the top five globalized countries (of the analyzed 139) were Hong Kong SAR (China), Singapore, Luxembourg, Ireland, and Belgium
• The bottom five were Iran, Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Burundi
• Countries with a higher DIG tend to be well developed and relatively small
• Small national markets thus a large share of their economic activity in other countries
• Large countries with emerging economies have a lower DIG
• The role of distance is significant in the depth of globalization since many interactions depend on transportation
• Digital interactions decrease with increasing distance

The Global Economic System

• @@Economic globalization is NOT the same thing as economic internationalization@@
• The internationalization of economic activity began with the development of empires and then economic links of colonial powers and their colonies
• The movement of capital and goods
• Production took place in the national territory
• Trade between countries is not globalization
• Only when production and distribution are no longer contained by national boundaries are related to globalization processes
• The increasing economic importance of transnational means that the production process is now organized across rather than within national boundaries
• With transnational effectively penetrating into countries
• Economic co-operation between states has ebbed and flowed over the past century

The Bretton Woods Agreement

• Economic globalization came near the end of World War II
• When the US became the world’s principal economic power and was able to initiate the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1994
• Led to the creation of two important economic institutions
• International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• World Bank (initially called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
• The IMF was to provide short-term assistance to countries whose currencies were tied either to gold or to the US Dollar
• The World Bank was to provide development assistance to Europe after the War
• The agreement examined the international capital movement
• Ways to be regulated primarily through national systems of exchange controls with the US dollar playing the key role
• Free trade was established
• The focus of a planned third international institution (International Trade Organization, ITO)
  • The US Senate refused to ratify the ITO Charter
• The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created
• A temporary and less formalized trade regime intended to reduce trade barriers between countries
• Eighth rounds of GATT trade talks through 1944 when the final (Uruguay) round accomplished the most sweeping liberalization of trade in history and led to the establishment of the WTO

Recent Changes to the Global Economic System

• The economic order introduced in the 1940s under the leadership of the United States has changed significantly
• The movement of capital is now virtually immediate and almost unregulated
• Movement is achieved electronically
• Represents a drastic change from the Bretton Woods system
• The principal geographical expression of this new form of capital movement is the rise of the world cities that dominate global patterns of trade, communication, finance, and technology transfer
• New York
• Tokyo
• London
• The roles of the IMF and the World Bank have expanded
• Several close-knit organizations are essentially discriminatory and protectionist in their approach to trade
• Some commentators suggest that we are moving toward a world composed of three regional trading blocs
• They would function as economic unions
• They would eventually replace states as a political power
• This prediction remains to be seen
• Political changes in the late 1980s and early 1990s had significant economic repercussions
• The collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, end of apartheid in South Africa
• Several new participants joined the world trade arena
• The country with the largest population in the world, China, is adopting increasingly capitalist economic policies

Cultural Globalization

• Evidence of increasing cultural homogenization
• Loss of national and local cultural identity
• It can be argued that national and ethnic identities especially contribute to conflict
• With the emergence of the nation-state, membership in national culture became available
• Before the rise, cultures, and identities were essentially local
• Nation-states can be seen as cultural integrators
• Bringing together various local identities
• Some suggest that we have reached a stage where a global cultural identity is developing
• Homogeneous global culture replacing the multitude of local cultures that have been characteristic for most of human history
• The diffusing culture is Western in character and largely derived from the US
• Mass media and consumer culture, the Internet, media, food chains, fashions, etc. are all popular culture
• It disseminates around the world
• Influencing aspects of non-material culture such as religion and language is undeniable
• Landscape feature local in origin enhance place identity
• Features global in origin contribute to placelessness
• E.g. indigenous building style vs chain department stores
• Someplace may lack the local characteristics that make a place distinctive
• Global characteristics make a place similar to other places → relatively placeless
• This suggests that places become placeless the more similar human experience becomes
• It is unlikely that globalization can erase the power of local places and local identities
• Physical environments vary throughout the world but have undeniable connections
• Inhabitants continue to behave differently from other people but still hold some attitudes, feelings, and beliefs that differ from those of other people
• The number of the world’s languages is decreasing
• A compelling example of cultural variation from place to place
• Differences in cultural identity continue to be a significant difference between places and groups of people
• The world we live in is NOT homogeneous
• A conflict between parochial ethnicity and global commerce may develop
• No uncontested and unidirectional processes at play in the contemporary world
• Some regional economies remain distinctive
• It is possible some differences are being enhanced
  • Rise of trading blocs
• The cultural world is becoming uniform at a time when so many ethnic groups are reasserting their identities
• Partly in reaction to the declining importance of national political and cultural identities

Political Globalization

• Political globalization results from technology
• The spread of transitional corporations produces an integrated world economy where consumer behavior patterns become more similar
• The idea of political globalization incorporated two explicitly political circumstances
• The process of political globalization has been underway for a very long time
• In 1500 BCE, the world contained 600,000 autonomous polities
• The long-term trend has been toward political integration
• The decades since 1945 gave seen some apparently anti-globalizing trends as colonial areas have achieved independence
• Approximately 95 new states have come into being this way
  • The collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of Yugoslavia were responsible to the creation of about 19 more
• The UN was in a position to play the role for which it was created following the end of the Cold War
• Previously, both the US and the Soviet Union actively sought to prevent the organization from fulfilling its mandate
• The UN faces many challenges partly because it continues to be dominated by the five powers with permanent seats and vetoes on the Security Council
• Globalization not only relies on the spread of democracy but also tends to promote it
• Democratic states tend to form closer links with one another than other political forms
• States that want to trade with democratic states will be persuaded to become more democratic
• Globalization may also promote peace if the “perpetual peace” scenario is correct
• Suggesting democracies do not wage war with another

Political States in the Contemporary World

• Political globalization challenges the integrity of the individual state
• Entails a reduction in the importance of the role played by states
• Ohmae, in the early 1990s, " the nation-state “has become an unnatural, even dysfunctional unit for organizing human activity and managing economic endeavors in a borderless world
• Suggests we are defining region states instead
• A region state is a natural economic area
• It may be part of a nation-state or cross boundaries
• Its principal economic links are global rather than national
• “North/South locational relationships”
• The rise of regional states has significant implications for national unity
• The role of the state is changing
• Twenty-first-century states may have trouble integrating with other states without sacrificing national identity
• The nation-state may prevail since people tend to resist change as long as they are reasonably comfortable
• Most Canadians want Quebec to remain part of Canada if only because of the insecurity that its secession would entail

Tribalism

• Tribalism is the opposite of globalism
• The tendency for groups to assert their right to a state separate from the one they occupy
• Tribalism gained ground point to secession movements, civil war, terrorism, and cross-border ethnic conflict fed by the resurgence of local identities
• Groups of people with some common identity are increasingly emphasizing their distinctiveness
• Often that the expense of the states to which they “belong”
• Some of the new states formed from conflict may they are more culturally meaningful than their predecessors
• Principal of multiculturalism is widely accepted
• Cultural pluralism is valued
• It is possible that acceptance of multiculturalism will lead to a tweaking of central authority as “tribal” identities become stronger

Globalization: Good OR Bad?

• Environmental issues and the state of the world, globalization often reflect ideological positions
• Personal views of the world and how i thought to be

Opposing Globalization

Who Benefits?

• Globalization is seen by some as benefitting the more developed world at the expense of the less developed
• Benefitting those few countries and private investors within the more developed world
• At the expense of many working people in less developed countries
• WTO’s capacity as guardian of world trade
• WTO members insist on closed meetings
  • Labor unions and environmental and anti-poverty groups are shunned from participating
  • This gives the impression that it is undemocratic
  • Working to benefit only its members or a select few
• The movement towards selective free trade can be interpreted as serving the interests of the major economic powers
• At the expense of the less developed countries becoming industrialized
• Encouraged domestic industrial growth
• Few if any restrictions on environmental degradation
• Benefits are unevenly distributed
• Most have lost rather than gained due to circumstances
• Numerous problems of conflict, inadequate infrastructure, and some cases of corrupt government all work together to limit economic opportunities
• World trade in textiles fully liberalized
• Smaller producers suffered while China and India significantly increased their exports, especially to the large US market
• Globalization is charged with contributing to the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor
• However, this is also the basic logic of the world systems and dependency theories

Prioritizing Export-Oriented Economies

• Globalization gives priority to export-centered economies
• Merits of local sustainable economies are downplayed
• The exploitation of resources in the less developed world to satisfy demand
• Negative impact on local economies
• Local landscapes are treated as global commodities
• Local communities are losing their traditional resource bases

Environmental Issues

• Resource extraction
• Human impacts on the environment are exacerbated by globalization trends
• Especially transnational activities
• Transnationals are among the principal actors in many environmental issues
• Fast food corporations → meat from animals in areas cleared specifically for animal pastures
• Oil companies extracting and producing in environmentally sensitive areas
• Amnesty International suggested that the completed oil and gas pipeline has infringed on the human rights
• 30,000 villagers had to give up their land rights
• The healthy and safety precautions are inadequate
• Local protesters faced state oppression
• Transnational companies have sometimes been charged with actively perpetuating local social injustices
• Talisman Oil was criticized by the Canadian social justice and church groups based on claims that the company actively support the Sudanese government during the country’s civil war
• Consistently identified as violating basic human rights
  • Forcibly removed people to make southern Sudan safe for Talisman
• This resulted in the Canadian government adopting the International Code of Ethics for Canadian business
• For Canadian companies with transnational operations
• The difficult political and social environment in Sudan was partly the reason Talisman sold all interests there in 2003

“Another World is Possible”

• The World Social Forum and its various related regional forums provide a platform for anti-globalization activists to plan and talk about strategy
• Participants reject the claim that globalization is in some way inevitable
• They argue that “another world is possible” and does not need to be forced into globalization

Supporting Globalization

• Most of those who support globalization do so for business-oriented reasons
• Pointing to economic growth
• Globalization is supported for reasons that are essentially moral

A Moral Argument

• In the book, “In Defence of Global Capitalism,” Norberg argues in favor of capitalistic economic globalization on the grounds that it represents the best hope for eliminating poverty and fulfilling human potential
• Argues that lowering trade barriers and investing capital in less developed countries help to reduce global poverty
• Not only defensible but also morally imperative
• Transnational investment in less developed countries increases wages
• Norberg favors the free movement of people as well as goods
• Improvements in the food supply, education, equality, human rights, and gender issues show that globalization is making the world a better place for most people
• Global capitalism increases opportunities and wealth for the world’s poor
• Globalization is far too complex for us to be sure that all its consequences will be so benign
• There are benefits of globalization but also be aware of the constant effort required to prevent adverse consequences

Increasing Participation in Decision-Making

• The global economic summits of the leaders of the world’s largest capitalist democracies
• Changing cast of characters in response to discussing global economic issues
• Evidence shows that emerging national economies are playing larger roles in the global economy
• In 2008, the Fortune 500 list of companies had 62 from Brazil, Russia, India, and China
• The reduction of subsidies will benefit poor countries that produce sugar
• The situation is more complicated because 18 former colonies of Europe also had access to the subsidies

Reducing Poverty?

• The more general trend is one of trade liberalization leading to rising incomes and longer-term development for the world’s poor
• In 2005, the emerging economies of the world produced a little more than 50% of world output
• Measured at purchasing-power-parity
• Accounted for more than 50% of the increase in global GDP
• Statistics indicate the biggest shift in economic strength since the rise of the US about 100 years ago

Enhancing Mutual Respect?

• Cultural globalization is emancipating
• If Western values are spreading globally, they include the basic ideals of liberal democracy
• Including freedom of speech and freedom and cultural expression
• Becoming more valued of our personal rights and freedoms and others
• Inalienable right to improve economic circumstances
• Greater pluralism
• More choices
• Enhanced mutual respect
• The 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human rights shares these values

Conclusion

• Space is shrinking, time is being compressed, and national borders are losing importance
• “Do we all live in one global village?”
• Geographers have long recognized that our increasing technological ability to overcome distance has resulted in what we call a “shrinking world”
• Places are closer together in terms of both space and time
• Through travel and broadcast and telecommunications media, we are increasingly aware of many other places
• Consequently, our experiences are a strange mix of near and far
• Social relations are being stretched
• Face-to-face interactions are less important as many of our contacts are with those who are physically distant
• Instead of making the world more homogeneous, it is reinforcing the distinctiveness of local places and identities
• Globalization does not signify the end of diversity or the imposition of a single culture
• A reality but by no means an uncontested one
• We may think of the world as a global village, but the truth is that most of its people are not yet villagers

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