Module 2: The Nature of

Globalization 2
Topic 1: globalization and regionalization
 Globalization vs. Regionalization

o Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and
often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress (Soule, Malhotra &
Clavier, 2017).

o Regionalization still exist despite of globalization because of different political and economic forces
that shapes globalization. Globalization is said to originate from the onset of civilization until new
waves of technology and innovations were introduced to the society, thus, making communication
process and exchange of trade much more easy.   

o The process of globalization and regionalization reemerged during the 1980s and heightened after the
end of Cold War in the 1990s. At first, it seems that these two processes are contradicting, but the
regionalization of the world system and economic activity undermines the potential benefits coming
from a liberalized global economy. This is because regional organizations prefer regional partners over
the rest. Regional organizations respond to the states’ attempt to reduce the perceived negative effects
of globalization. Therefore, regionalism is a sort of counter-globalization.

o According to Hurrell (2007) “one world/ many worlds relationship. Regional developments in one part
of the world have affected and fueled regionalization everywhere else in a sort of contagion or domino
effect. This fact, along with increasing developments in interregional cooperation, shows the
regionalization process is global in nature. Therefore, regionalization is intimately linked to
globalization since it is a part of it and it builds on it.”

o Regionalization (Hurrell (2007) –societal integration and the often undirected process of social and
economic interaction. Different from regionalism (Ravenhill, 2008) which is the formal process of
intergovernmental collaboration between two or more states.

o Huntington (2006), believed that culture and identity guide regionalization. For him “in the post-Cold
War world, states increasingly define their interests in civilization terms”. Non-state actors, such as
Trans National Corporations (TNCs), act as a driving force toward regionalism. These TNCs, whose
host countries are not part of a given regional trade agreement, find themselves in a disadvantaged
commercial situation with respect to competing companies belonging to the regional organization in
question.

o Ravenhil (2008) said that disadvantaged TNCs will lobby their national governments to sign similar
trade agreements in order to end their disadvantaged commercial situation.

o Many policy makers and scholars think that globalization must be regulated and managed. The threats
of an “ungoverned globalization” can be countered what Jacoby and Meunier (2010) called managed
globalization –refers to all attempts to make globalization more palatable to citizens.
 Regionalism vs. Regionalization

o Regionalism became dominant force to promote blocs that negotiates trade tariffs and policies that are
favorable to the group. Regionalization according to Hurrell (2007) is the societal integration and the often
undirected process of social and economic interaction that is different from regionalism which is the
formal process of intergovernmental collaboration between two or more states (Ravenhill, 2008) .

Topic 2: Origins and History of Globalization

 There are many arguments about how globalization really started. Some theorists will claim that it started
during the period of Western discoveries but some attributed it to the onset of Industrial Age. Nonetheless,
its history can be traced to several perspectives. 

 There are many perspectives about how globalization started and these are the five different perspectives:

1. Hardwired
 According to Chanda (2007), it is because of our basic human needs to make lives better that made
globalization possible. Therefore, one can trace the beginning of globalization from our ancestors
in Africa who walked out from the said continent in the late Ice Age. This long journey finally led
them to all-known continents today, roughly after 50,000 years ago.

 Chanda (2007) mentioned that commerce, religion, politics and warfare are the “urges” of people
toward a better life. These are respectively connected to four aspects of globalization and they can
be traced all throughout history: trade, missionary work, adventures and conquest.

2. Cycles
 For some globalization is a long-term cyclical process and thus, finding its origin will be a daunting
task. What is important is the cycles that globalization has gone through (Scholte, 2005).
Subscribing to this view will suggest adherence to the idea that other global ages have appeared.
There is also the notion to suspect that this point of globalization will soon disappear and reappear.

3. Epoch
 Ritzer (2015) cited Therborn’s (2000) great epochs of globalization. These are also called “waves”
and each has its own origin. The following are the sequential occurrence of the epochs:
a) globalization of religion (4th-7th centuries)
b) European colonial conquests (late 15th century)
c) Intra-European wars (late 18th to early 19th centuries)
d) Heyday of European imperialism (mid-19th century to 1918)
e) Post-World War II Period6. Post-Cold War period

4. Events
 Specific events are also considered as part of the fourth view in explaining the origin of
globalization. Several points can be treated as the start of globalization. Gibbon (1998), for
example, argued that Roman conquests centuries before Christ were its origin. Rosenthal (2007)
gave premium to the voyages of discovery –Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America in
1492, Vasco De Gama in Cape of Good Hope in 1498, and Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation
of the globe in 1522.

 The recent years could be also regarded as the beginnings of globalization with reference to
specific technological advances in transportation and communication. Some examples include the
 first transatlantic telephone cable (1956), the first transatlantic television broadcasts (1962), the
founding of the modern internet in 1988, and the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York
(2001).

5. Broader, More Recent Changes

 These broad changes happened in the last of the 20th century. Scholars today point to these three
notable changes as the origin of globalization that we know today. They are as follows:
a. The emergence of the United States as the global power (post-World War II)
b. The emergence of multi-national corporations (MNCs)
c. The demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War

 Post Modernity
 In the late 20th Century where globalization became dominant force, many theorists proclaimed that this
period is also the period of post modernity where new forms of technology are already beyond modern
times. It is different from philosophical movement of deconstructing the modern Western narratives
called post modernism. This video will provide you an insight about post modernity.

Topic 3: Global Demography

o The global demography is affected by rapid global migration from different parts of the world. These
movements were caused by several factors including political and economic factors. 

o Demographic transition is a singular historical period during which mortality and fertility rates decline
from high to low levels in a particular country or region. The broad outlines of the transition are similar in
countries around the world, but the place and timing of the transaction have varied considerably.

o The transition started in mid or late 1700s in Europe. During that time, death rates and fertility began to
decline. High to low fertility happened 200 years in France and 100 years in United States. In other parts
of the world, the transition began later. It was only in the 20thcentury that mortality decline in Africa and
Asia, with the exemption of Japan. According to Maddison (2001), life expectancy in India was only 24
years in the early 20thcentury while same life expectancy occurred in China in 1929 until 1931.

o Fertility decline in Asia did not begin until 1950s and so on. In the case of Japan, it was until the 1930s
that “total fertility rate did not drop below five births per woman” (Shigeyuki, et. al. 2002). This resulted
in rapid population growth after the World War II, affecting the age structure of Asia and the developing
world. Specifically, the baby boom in the developing world was caused by the decline of infant and child
mortality. The West, on the other hand, experienced baby boom that resulted from rising birth rates.

o A remarkable effect of the demographic transition, as Shigeyuki et. al, (2002) stated, is “ the enormous
gap in life expectancy that emerged between Japan and the West on the one hand and the rest of the world
on the other”. By 1820, the life expectancy at birth of Japan and the West was 12 years greater than other
countries.

o There was a reverse in global population shares during the 20thcentury as Africa, Asia, Latin America and
Oceania had high levels of population growth rates. The United Nations projected the population growth
will be shifted toward Africa. It is estimated that by 2150, the regions’ share to the world population will
be almost 20 percent, relatively much greater than its share in 1820 (7%) and 1900 (6%). Also in 2150,
there will be a projected increase of two billion if we combine the populations of Asia, Latin America and
Oceania.

o Global Population
  In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living, and was estimated
to have reached 7,800,000,000 people as of March 2020.[1] It took over 200,000 years of human history
for the world's population to reach 1 billion,[2]and only 200 years more to reach 7 billion.[3]
1. "World Population Clock: 7.8 Billion People (2020) - Worldometers". worldometers.info. Archived
from the original on 1 September 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
2. “World Population to Hit Milestone With Birth of 7 Billionth Person". PBS News Hour. 27
October 2011. Archived from the original on 24 September 2017. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
3. "World population hits 6 billion". 4 March 2004. Archived from the original on 22 February 2018.
Retrieved 11 February 2018.

World Population as of August 1, 2020

Topic 4: Global Migration

 Global migration can be understood as a cause and effect relationship, though the causes are just as
numerous as their effects. People move across international borders for a variety of reasons, including
(though not limited to) economic, political conflict, education, war, and natural disaster. 
 Migration is one key factors of globalization. The nuances of the movements of people around the world
can be seen through the categories of migrants –“vagabonds” and “tourists” (Bauman, 1998).

 Vagabonds are on the move “because they have to be” (Ritzer, 2015) –they are not faring well in their
home countries and are forced to move in the hope that their circumstances will improve. Tourists, on the
other hand, are on the move because they want to be and because they can afford it. Refugees are
vagabonds forced to flee their home countries due to safety concerns (Haddad, 2003). Asylum seekers are
refugees who seek to remain in the country to which they flee.

 According to Kritz (2008), those who migrate to find work are involved in labor migration. Labor
migration is driven by “push” factors as well as “pull” factors. Labor migration mainly involves the flow
of less-skilled and unskilled workers, as well as illegal immigrants who live on the margins of the host
society (Landler, 2007).

 Migration is traditionally governed either by “push” factors such as political persecution, economic
depression, war and famine in the home country or by “pull” factors such as favorable immigration policy,
labor shortage, and similarity of language and culture in the country of destination (Ritzer, 2015). Global
factors, which facilitate easy access to information about the country of destination, also exert a significant
influence.

 According to Malkin(2007), the Philippines is one of the leaders when it comes to the flow of remittances
($14.7 billion), next to India ($24.5 billion) and China ($21.1 billion).
  The term “diaspora” has been increasingly used to describe migrant communities. Paul Gilroy’s (1993)
conceptualization of the diaspora as a transnational process, which involves dialogue to both imagined
and real locales.

 Diasporization and globalization are closely interconnected and the expansion of the latter will lead to an
increase in the former (Dufoix, 2007). Today, there exists “virtual diasporas” (Laguerre, 2002) which
utilize technology such as the internet to maintain the community network.

 Diaspora
 Diaspora means as a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale. Historically,
it pertains to the involuntary mass dispersion of a population from its indigenous territories, in particular
the dispersion of Jews. This has since changed, and today there is no set definition of the term because its
modern meaning has evolved over time. This video explains the global diaspora of people in different
parts of the world as a postcolonial concept.

Notes:
 Topic 2
o Post Modernity
 Historical period subsequent to modernity - “human civilization
 Different from post modernism -cultural and above all artistic manifestation of that period; term
applied to a wide variety of cultural practices and cultural discourses associated with the experience
of post modernity.

o Modernity to Postmodernity
 Period of accelerated change that began after World War 2
 Assumed to be governed by social and economic changes
 Participants of postmodernist debate no longer considered classical Marxism as relevant to their concern
 Debate remained to be informed by a tacit appeal to the base/superstructure - ideological
phenomena - underlying economic structure

o Fredric Jameson
 Postmodernity - post war period market capitalism = monopoly capitalism
 Superseded by a 3rd technological revolution that gives rise to an era of “late capitalism”.

o Ernest Mandel
 Postmodernity is an era characterized by unprecedented fusion of science, technology and production
that extend industrialization to all sectors of economy and society.

o Postmodernity
 Era of postindustrial society in which the production of commodities gives way to the production and
manipulation of knowledge
 Making a break with modernity
o Modernity to Postmodernity
 Fordism to Post Fordism
 Conservative government: 1979-1997

o Jean Francois Lyotard

 Postmodernism represents a liberation from the illusory: grand narratives of the enlightenment and its
successors.

o Zygmunt Bauman
 Modernity is a long march to prison
 Modernity’s promise was never fulfilled
 To discover new forms of emancipations rather than surrendering to the seduction of postmodern
consumerism.

 Topic 4
o Most migrations occur within regions, not across them.
o Year 2000, UN Human Development Report:
 7.25 million African living in Europe, 3.1 million in Asia, 1.2 million in North America and 13 million
within Africa
 15.5 million Asians lived in Europe, 9.5 M in North America, 1 million each in Oceania and Africa, and
35 million within Asia.
 1.3 million European lived in Latin America and Africa, 8 million in North America, 8.5 million in Asia
and 31.5 million within Europe.
 20 million Latin America migrants in North America

o Big Coutries for Workers

1. Japan
2. Hong Kong
3. Singapore
4. South Korea

o Diaspora
 Scattering of people, usually Greek people, voluntarily or not, across the world with an intent to colonize
or work.
 Forceful removal of Jewish population from the Levant
 A population of natives who had either moved to the metropolitan centers

o Diasporic Literature
 Works produced by authors who lived in the former metropolitan centers, colonial centers of nation
 With insights of native countries
 Literatures produced by authors who originally might have come from a former colony and then moved
to England, USA, Canada, etc. and the write about the experience of being an expert in that country and
draw on historical and cultural heritage of native country or origin
 Literatures produces by individuals who lived in the European centers but write about issues related to
either their experience in those countries or rely on historical and cultural heritage of own native
countries.