Globalization refers to the growing interdependence of societies across the world, with the spread of the same culture and economic interests across the globe. For example, media and consumer products are often produced for a world market, by the same firms running business all over the world.
Factors Contributing to Globalization:
Anthony Giddens has explained the following factors as contributing to Globalization:
1. The Rise of Information and Communications Technology: The explosion in global communications has been facilitated by a number of important advances in technology and the world’s telecommunication infrastructure. The spread of communication satellites has also been significant in expanding international communications. Today a network of more than 200 satellites is in space to facilitate the transfer of information around the globe.
The use of Satellites, Internet, Telephones, Computer Networking, known as Information and Communication Technologies – ICT – have revolutionised the way the world communicates. You could be chatting online, through the internet, with your friend or family, who is thousands of miles away, and feel that you share your everyday travails much more than a person who is closer home like your neighbor. You could be working in India for a company that is located in the United States of America through telecommunication technologies.
2. Information Flows: It has also facilitated the flow of information about people and events in distant places. Every day, the global media brings news, images and information into homes, linking them directly and continuously to the outside world.
Some of the most gripping events of the past three decades – such as the fall of the Berlin Wall,the violent crackdown on democratic protesters in China’s Tiananmen Square and the Terrorist attacks on Mumbai on 11 September 2001, Spring movement in Arabian countries, have unfolded through the media before global audience.
Such events, along with thousands of information, have resulted in a reorientation in people’s thinking from the level of the nationstate to the global stage. In the case of natural disasters, such interventions take the form of humanitarian relief and technical assistance. In recent years, earthquakes in Armenia and Turkey, floods in Mozambique and Bangladesh, famine in Africa and hurricanes in Central America have been rallying points for global assistance.
3. Knowledge Society: The emergence of the knowledge society has been linked to the development of a broad base of consumers who are technologically literate and eagerly integrate new advances in computing, entertainment and Telecommuni-cations into their everyday lives. The very operation of the global economy reflects the changes that have occurred in the information age. Many aspects of the economy now work through networks that cross national boundaries, rather than stopping at them.
4. Transnational Corporations: In globalization, the role of trans-national corporations is particularly important. Transnational corporations are companies that produce goods or market services in more than one country. For example Coca-Cola., Pepsi, Johnson and Johnson, Ford, General Motors, Colgate-Palmolive, Indian corporations like Reliance, TATAs, Birla Groups, Infosys, Mahindras, TVS group, Wipro, etc. Even when trans-national corporations have a clear national base, they are oriented towards global markets and global profits. Transnational corporations are at the heart of economic globalization.
5.The Electronic Economy: Globalization is also being driven forward by the integration of the world economy. In contrast to previous eras, the global economy is no longer primarily agricultural or industrial in its basis. Rather, it is increasingly dominated by activity that is weightless and intangible. This U weightless economy is one in which products have their base in information, as is the case with computer software, media and; entertainment products and Internet-based services.
The ‘Electronic Economy’ is another factor ‘that underpins economic globalization. Banks, corporations, fund managers and individual investors are able to shift funds internationally with the click of a mouse. As the global economy becomes increasingly integrated, a financial collapse in one part of the world can have an enormous effect on distant economies.
6. Political changes: Another driving force behind contemporary globalization is related to political change.
These are:
1. The collapse of Soviet-style communism in 1991. The collapse of communism has hastened processes of globalization but should also be seen as a result of globalization itself.
2. The important political factor leading to intensifying globalization is the Growth of International and Regional Mechanisms of Government namely The United Nations and the European Union. SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation) and BRICS (Brazil; Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are; the two most prominent examples of international organizations that bring together nation-states into a common political forum.
Finally, globalization is being driven by International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs). An IGO is a body that is established by Participating governments and given responsibility for regulating or overseeing a particular domain of activity that is transnational in scope. The first such body, The International Telegraph Union, was founded in 1865. Since that time, a great number of similar bodies have been created.
In 1909, there were only 37 IGOs in existence to regulate transnational affairs; by 1996, there were 260. Some of the best known INGOs – such as Greenpeace, Medicines Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), the Red Cross and Amnesty International-are involved in environmental protection and humanitarian efforts. But the activities of thousands of lesser known groups also link together countries and communities.
