Overview
This course will critically examine notions of globalisation, and in particular, economic globalisation, under the following headings:
Introducing globalisation…
From international to global economy: the changing map of economic activities
Major shapers of the global economy 1: nat...
GEOG10101 – Geographies of Globalisation
Week 1 – Introducing globalisation
Shifting views on globalisation
• Globalisation was seen as good for everyone around the 1990s because there was an
optimism about it
• In which the key aspect of globalisation was a free market economy
• However, in recent time the globalisation has become criticised since the global
financial crisis of 2007-2008, as there’s more questioning of the optimistic scenarios
of the economic integration via the free market
• Therefore, it has been suggested that globalisation was built on a flaw structure. The
financial crisis that occurred in America due to the real estate market, had a knock-
on effect on the rest of the world, as the world’s financial system (bank) were
integrated
Shift from the West to the East
• In globalisation, there are winners and losers, as the increase of interlinked trade
and economic activity has led to new rising power in the global economy (e.g. BRIC –
Brazil, Russia, India and China)
• Therefore, globalisation has allowed developing countries to catch up to develop
countries, which has led to countries becoming rivals (e.g. as China catch up to
America)
National sovereignty
• Globalisation has been seen as a challenge to national sovereignty, which has
resulted in the rise of political development such as Brexit and America imposing
more trade barriers, because it’s seen as a rejection to globalisation and increasing
protectionism
Globalisation
• Globalisation is the increased interconnectedness and interdependence of countries
worldwide. As economic, demographic, political and cultural become increasingly
integrated through the global network of trade, communication, transportation and
immigration
• Globalisation has different dimensions:
- Domains: economic, political, cultural and environmental (it’s a holistic process)
- Actors (i.e. so it’s not just TNCs, it’s a complex international stakeholder structure):
states, cities, firms, institutions and migrant
- Objects: goods, services, money, technology and ideas (cultural interconnection has
risen as a result)
- Timing: time-space convergence – the time taken to travel between places has
become shorter, therefore the world/places are getting closer together in terms of
travel time
, - Impacts of the above: good (e.g. food), bad (e.g. inequality within regions, mass
pollution and exploitation of people)
Contested globalisation
• It’s important to recognise that globalisation is a contested concept – globalisation
means different things to different people (e.g. economically, environmentally and
politically)
• These definitional differences matter in terms of how we understand the world, so
the term has to used critically because it can influence how the world work. E.g.
Brexit – globalisation is often associated with migration and multi-culturalism, which
isn’t in the same category and this can have consequences as it fuels negative
feelings and cause negative affects
• Therefore, we need to be aware of the different meanings of the term and be
careful with our use of the concept
Globalisation
• “Globalisation” has been adopted as the dominant label for describing the
multiplicity of linkages and interconnections between the global economy, states
and societies which make the modern world system
• “Globalisation” is used to describe the processes through which events, decisions
and activities in one part of the world can come to have significant consequences for
individuals and communities in quite distant parts of the globe
• Globalisation has two distinct dimensions:
- Scope (i.e. expanding) – more interconnection between places and expansion of
economic and social activity, so it’s a concept that has spatial connotation.
Therefore, all aspects of activities are becoming stretched across the globe
- Intensity (i.e. deepening) – an intensification in the levels of interaction,
interconnectedness and interdependence between states and societies which forms
the world
- E.g. Apple’s supply chain – HQ and where it’s designed in California, while
assembled in China and the components of it is made Taiwan, South Korea and
Thailand, whereas the raw materials comes from Africa and Siberia. Therefore, the
supply chain is complex, the many division of labour in different places are
connected usually JIT production system, as the designed are sent from California to
China to assemble the product and materials need to be shipped to South Korea for
components to be made
Academic perspective on globalisation
Perspective 1 – the hyper-globalists
• Geography doesn’t matter because the world is borderless, as globalisation has
caused nation states to become no longer relevant. Therefore, regions can become
successful in developing if it opens up to the world and reduce protectionist policies
such as allowing investment and migration flow
, • The global is the natural scale of economic organisation, because in a free market
society the world should only be limit, so firms should compete internationally to
become successful
• With the rise of the free market economy, consumer taste and culture has become
homogenised through sales of standard global products, so there has been a trend
towards global convergence
• However, this view of a borderless world is slowly erasing – Brexit was on the basis
of strengthening boarders to take back control, the Irish boarder has remerged, and
America has increase its tariffs on China
• It has been argued Brexit was a rejection of globalisation, but it has been suggested
it’s a rejection to the EU (a multinational union) in order to embrace the world, so in
this sense Brexit is seen as pro-globalisation and the EU is seen as holding the UK
back from trading with the world
• Therefore, there’s different perspective, some people see Brexit as taking back
control by super-national while others see Brexit as opening up to the world. So,
there should be a critical perspective
• “More open and competitive markets are the only sustainable vehicle for growing a
nation out of poverty” – Thomas Friedman (a notable hyper-globalist)
Perspective 2 – the sceptics
• These sceptics question the claims of globalisation, the newness of the current
situation has been greatly exaggerated by the hyper-globalist because the world
have always been living in a global economy to some extent as there has been
international trade and interconnection
• The current economic world is no more different to the past, in fact the volume of
trade declined from 1930s and it wasn’t until the recent past decade global trade
returned to the same level of trade in the late 1800s and early 1900s
• Also, the force of national states remains highly significant in shaping economic
activities through taxation and distribution (e.g. wealth-fare through provision
services). Therefore, nation state is seen as the most important unit in economic
activity (unlike hyper-globalist who see nation state becoming irrelevant as the world
become borderless and the rise of multinational organisations, e.g. UN and EU etc.)
• “People in rich countries who preach free markets and free trade to the poor
countries in order to capture larger shares of the market and prevent the emergence
of possible competitors, they are saying ‘do as we say, not as we did’” – Ha-Joon
Chang (a notable sceptic)
Perspective 3 – the transformationists
• Transformationists believe the nature of international economic connections have
changed (e.g. Apple’s supply chain and the increased interconnectedness between
people and places)
• There’s a shift from shallow to a deeper integration (e.g. more complex division of
labour between places and more complex products being made)
, • There are globalising forces at work, there are processes that integrate places, but
the world economy isn’t fully globalised as the world isn’t evenly developed. In fact,
globalisation has created differential places within countries because some regions
are more intensely interconnected to the world than others (so some regions have
become deglobalized compared to its past, e.g. Liverpool)– there are winners and
losers
• Globalisation is a set of interrelated processes, there isn’t an end state and there
isn’t a predetermined outcome
• Globalisation isn’t neutral, there’s good or bad development aspects depending on
how it’s looked at
The global economy: a heuristic framework
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