globalization as universalization essay

Globalization and Globalism

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• Richard L. Harris 2  

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The sociologist Cesare Poppi ( 1997 : 285) has noted that: “The literature stemming from the debate on globalization has grown in the last decade beyond any individual’s capability of extracting a workable definition of the concept.” But like many others who have grappled with the definition of globalization, Poppi does end up describing globalization as both an important historical process as well as a contested discourse about the global nature of human society. The contemporary literature and ideological debates on globalization and globalism involve a highly contested, complex, and multidimensional discourse on the nature of the present world order, its historical antecedents, underlying causative forces, and future evolution. Most theorizing and empirical research on this subject tends to be organized around the following key issues or questions: is globalization really taking place on a global scale; is it producing global convergence and integration or divergence and...

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Richard L. Harris

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Harris, R.L. (2017). Globalization and Globalism. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1144-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1144-1

Received : 31 March 2017

Accepted : 01 May 2017

Published : 13 May 2017

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-31816-5

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-31816-5

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6 Glocalization

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Zayed University

• Published: 11 December 2018
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This chapter provides a conceptual overview of glocalization, tracing its origin, and the intellectual milieu in which this concept evolved. It also examines how glocalization helps researchers understand the interpenetration of “global” with “local” in various institutions and everyday life. In explaining the relationship between the processes of globalization with glocalization, this chapter highlights the potential usefulness of this concept in global studies. It also introduces a distinction between a thin theory and a thick theory of globalization, arguing that glocalization is conceptually closer to the latter. The chapter posits that in order to understand the dynamics of the current phase of globalization, a top-down view of globalization may not be adequate, and that one also has to recognize the growing transglocal linkages portending the emergence of transglocalization, a new phase of globalization that may even contest the hegemony of the top-down, neoliberal globalization.

This chapter has three main sections. The first section seeks to provide a sociology of knowledge perspective on the emergence of the concept glocalization. This section also situates the idea of glocalization in the context of historical processes of intercultural exchanges and borrowings, and it discusses the relationship between glocalization and some of the cognate concepts such as hybridity or intersectionality to underscore the efficacy, if not the comparative advantage, of this concept over some of the competing concepts. It is argued that to understand intercultural interpenetration, glocalization has become a salient concept in the global age while recognizing the continued currency of the related concepts. The second section, the bulk of the chapter, examines how the process of glocalization has shaped and continues to shape various institutional spheres of society in the global age. The examination of a spectrum of spheres ranging from popular culture to laws and religion in society not only provides the evidence of the processes of glocalization at play but also helps sharpen and add rigor to the concept of glocalization. The third and final section of the chapter explores, largely, the role of this concept in global studies. Global studies as a multidisciplinary field of study has gained considerable scholarly attention, and it can be conceived of as studies of the impacts or consequences of the processes of globalization and glocalization. In this section, it is argued that glocalization provides a useful conceptual tool and adds rigor to global studies. The chapter also explores the conceptual and theoretical relationship between globalization and glocalization, often drawing on empirical references to illustrate the discussion. Here, I introduce a distinction between two conceptualizations and, hence, two understandings of globalization—a thin theory and a thick theory of globalization. It is the thick theory of globalization that comes closer to glocalization. In this light, it can be stated, following Roland Robertson ( 1995 , 2003 ), that globalization leads to glocalization and the two concepts become coterminous; in other words, a nuanced, and thus dense, understanding of globalization is glocalization itself ( Khondker 2004 ). Although glocalization is at the same time both constitutive of and a manifestation of globalization, it may be possible—even desirable—to keep these concepts analytically separate, albeit interrelated. The concept of glocalization, this chapter will demonstrate, may have a great deal of relevance for the field of globalization studies, especially in capturing the nuanced relationships between what is nominally called “global” and what is conceived as “local.” In conclusion, the chapter argues that sociological concepts by force of the sheer complexity of the changing empirical realities they seek to handle become complex and abstract. Although some level of abstractness is a necessary aspect of a concept or a theoretical construct, it is also important not to forget that the other goal of a social scientific concept is to illuminate and to add clarity rather than opacity. In this regard, the scholars of global studies can make significant contributions.

Enter Glocalization

Some may regard glocalization as a faddish term and nothing more than in-house jargon in global studies in general and sociology in particular. Such a charge resonates with the popular image of sociologists, who have often been accused of neologism; in fact, some neologisms, such as Robert Merton’s “dysfunction,” have over time become an acceptable part of the lexicon and part of the repertoire of everyday language. Glocalization, too, has become part of the social scientific discourse, finding its way into business studies and other disciplines to the extent that a journal 1 dedicated to this subject was introduced in 2013.

The concept glocalization, a synthesis of globalization and localization, owes its origin to Roland Robertson, who first introduced the concept “glocal” in the early 1990s while consolidating his theoretical arguments about globalization (Robertson 1992: 173) . He formally articulated and explicated this concept in 1994 and 1995 while defending his concept of globalization and trying to rescue it from the gross simplification in the prevalent social scientific (mainly economic) discourses. Robertson conceptualized globalization abstractly, arguing that “its central dynamic [emphasis in original] involves the two-fold processes of the particularization of the universal and the universalization of the particular” ( Robertson 1992 : 177–178). With hindsight, it can be argued that the idea of glocalization was built into this formulation of globalization. Thus, although the concept glocalization is often thought of separately from globalization, upon reflection it can also be conceived as an aspect of globalization. Since 1992 when the concept was introduced and having been formally articulated in the mid-1990s, other social scientists have contributed to the discussion and have added empirical substance to this concept. Some writers have argued that globalization—the thick globalization—can be viewed in certain senses as glocalization ( Beyer 2007 ; Khondker 2004 ; Swyngedouw 2004 ). The idea that a deeper sociological understanding of globalization is but glocalization goes back to Robertson ( 1992 , 1995 ), the putative originator of this concept. This view is based on the consequences or translation of the processes of globalization at the local, ground level. Some writers viewed globalization primarily as an economic process. Following this line of thought, Swyngedouw (2004) viewed glocalization in terms of scaling of governance to regulate (and perhaps facilitate as well) capitalist production, where the state sits in the middle between the processes of regionalization and localization; both these processes can be subsumed under the rubric of glocalization. As stated by Swyngedouw, glocalization refers to

(1) the contested restructuring of the institutional level from the national scale both upwards to supra-national or global scales and downwards to the scale of the individual body or the local, urban or regional configurations and (2) the strategies of global localisation of key forms of industrial, service and financial capital. (p. 37)

The notion of glocalization as “rescaling” of institutional forms of capital has implication for governance because “glocalizing” production cannot be separated from “glocalizing” levels of governance ( Swyngedouw 1997 : 159). Swyngedouw’s economic geographic analysis of glocalization dates back to the early 1990s.

The politico-economic context of the emergence of the sociological constructs of globalization and glocalization was the beginning of the neoliberal phase of the global capitalism represented by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain, who took office in 1979, and President Ronald Reagan in the United States, who took office in 1980. Both leaders were ideologues and mouthpieces of the “free market” ideology that marginalized society to an extent that sociology as a discipline was at risk. The retreat of the welfare state, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan in 1980 marked a muscular phase of the Cold War, which later turned out to be the beginning of its end (although not viewed as such at that moment in history). Intellectually, at least, in the studies of social change and development, neo-Marxist dependency theories were maturing into Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems theory, which played a central role in rescuing sociology from methodological nationalism by focusing on the phenomena at the world-systemic level. Robertson and several sociologists were as excited by the world- or globe-centric analysis as they were critical of the supposedly one-sided, economistic analysis in the theory of Wallerstein, who championed a Braudelian version of total history with strong emphasis on material conditions.

Although the post-World War II modernization theory was criticized for its abstract and ahistorical analysis, it gave way to a debate over convergence, divergence, and invariance as a consequence of modernization or large-scale social change, which dominated the imagination of a group of sociologists (Baum 1974 , 1977 ; Robertson and Holzner 1980 ) who shared a common interest in classical sociology and were influenced by the sociology of Talcott Parsons. A dense intellectual debate often impenetrable to less philosophically inclined sociologists was also influenced by the comparative inter-civilizational analysis of Benjamin Nelson. It was in that intellectual milieu that the ideas of both globalization and glocalization germinated. Roland Robertson, who co-authored a book on international modernization in the late 1960s, was an ardent member of the inter-civilizational analysis group and became the champion of the analytical framework of globalization in the early 1980s.

Robertson (1992) sought to understand the cultural implication of capitalism, a macro-global process on-the-ground reality: “Global capitalism both promotes and is conditioned by cultural homogeneity and cultural heterogeneity. The production and consolidation of difference and variety is an essential ingredient of contemporary capitalism” (p. 173). Robertson was also one of the pioneers of global studies, with roots in his work on international modernization with J. P. Nettl (1968) .

Globalization is “characterized by two distant but closely connected processes. Social actors possess greater senses of ‘globality’: That is, globalization is marked by increasing subjective consciousness of the world as a whole; or, in other words, it involves heightened awareness of the world as a ‘single place’ ” ( Robertson 1992 : 6). It is also characterized by a global intensification of social and cultural “connectivity,” such as through telecommunications and international travel (cf. Tomlinson 1999 ; Giulianotti and Robertson 2004 : 546). Globalization is also marked culturally by processes of “glocalization,” whereby local cultures adapt and redefine any global cultural product to suit their particular needs, beliefs, and customs ( Giulianotti and Robertson 2004 : 546; Robertson 1992 , 1995 , 2003 ; Robertson and White 2004 ).

Globalization relativizes all particularisms, forcing exponents of specific beliefs or identities to confront and to respond to other, particularistic ideas, identities, and social processes across the universal domain. Thus, although universalism and particularism may appear as categorical antinomies, they are interdependent, fused together in a globe-wide nexus ( Robertson 1992 : 102). Glocalization captured the interpenetration of the local and the global, and in doing so it goes beyond the dichotomy of the local and the global. To a considerable extent, this conceptual framework accounted for micro-marketing strategies of capitalism. In tourism, one of the largest industries in the world, locale plays a key role. Tourists would loath to travel if every place was the same. Tourists like to see exotic and authentic places. The authenticity of original cultural or architectural features can be preserved, but in some cases, dance and music have to be constructed to suit the tourist gaze. Quoting MacCannell (1989) , a pseudo-reconstruction of “authentic otherness” is the general feature of the contemporary phase of the globalization of culture ( Robertson 1992 : 173). Robertson’s framework thus makes important contributions to global studies, which mark out a multidisciplinary, transnational field of study in which the focus is on the empirical processes and the discussion goes beyond national boundaries, reflecting the complex realities of the twenty-first century. In delving into the evolving and complex realities of global studies, the conceptual tools of globalization and glocalization will be of great value.

It is possible to project the ideas of glocalization to understand historical processes of cultural exchanges and diffusion. Human cultures are products of admixtures historically. Sometimes in the processes of cultural adaptation, borrowings took place imperceptibly and unconsciously, sometimes consciously and voluntarily. Despite the cultural nationalists and puritans, historians and cultural anthropologists dispelled the myth of uniqueness of culture long ago. Ralph Linton’s (1937) classic essay, “One Hundred Percent American,” may be considered a paean to cultural globalization. Historians have provided additional illustrations of intercultural borrowing with profound implication for shaping major cultural episodes. Eurocentric history was a product of its time; new historical research is interrogating and changing many commonly held beliefs about historical sequences, highlighting nonlinearity and exposing Eurocentrism. For example, the writings of Marx and Weber presented an invariant view of history, in which civilizations retained their splendid isolation from each other. It is only modern capitalism, spreading rationality, that promises to result in global convergence. Recent research has shown the influence of Arab Muslim thinkers on the men of ideas responsible for the Renaissance ( Hobson 2004 : 174–175). The mathematical works of Ibn Al-Haytham may have influenced those of Roger Bacon and other precursors of the Renaissance ( Morgan 2008 : 104). Bacon, the thirteenth-century Oxford scholar, quoted Ibn al-Haytham; Al-Kindi was another source of inspiration for him (Al-Hassani, Woodcock, and Saoud 2007: 322). About Ibn Al-Haytham’s research on optics, the eyeball, and the camera obscura , Morgan writes,

Five hundred years before Leonardo da Vinci, he delves into things that will later be attributed to the great Italian and to Kepler and Descartes, when in fact they, like some Renaissance and post-Renaissance thinkers are really replicating or building on what the great Muslim scientists had established long ago. (p. 104)

Morgan states that it was Muslim history “that had seeded the European Renaissance and enabled many aspects of the modern West and global civilization” (p. xiv). For Jack Goody, culture has always moved both ways: “But earlier the movement was generally from East to West” ( Goody, 2004 : 14). On the basis of Joseph Needham’s research, Goody traces the links between East and West to the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia, not just in the spread of plow and wheel but also in the ideas of astronomy and physiology ( Goody 1996 : 250).

Renaissance, thus, was more than a linear outcome, a rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman intellectual and artistic heritage. As Greek philosophy once seeded great minds of the Muslim intellectuals between the tenth and twelfth centuries, a phase dubbed as “lost enlightenment,” it is now recognized that the intellectual advancements during the golden ages of Muslim civilization “were themselves influenced by the achievements of earlier contributions to human civilization, such as those of ancient China, India and Greece” ( Al-Rodhan 2012 : 15). A careful history of the circulation of cultural ideas, knowledge, and technology in the world based on methodological cosmopolitanism will reveal a long genealogy of the phenomenon of glocalization.

One of the alleged weaknesses of the concept of glocalization is that it fails to recognize the dimension of power, let alone account for tensions and confrontational politics ( Roudometof 2015 ). Tensions—both political and cultural—arising from contestation of economic and political power are examined later with regard to the conclusion suggesting that glocalization may not be a smooth process. Some of the negative aspects of the world today, such as religious extremism, may be rooted in glocalization and transglocalization. A clarification of the concepts at hand is needed before proceeding to the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of glocalization. The next section attempts to add some clarity to the conceptual tools.

Concepts such as glocalization ( Robertson 1995 ), “mélange” ( Pieterse 1995 ), “creolization” ( Hannerz 1992 ), disjuncture ( Appadurai 1996 ), and hybridity have been used to describe and analyze the process as well as consequences of the spread of globalization (Turner and Khondker 2010 : 69–73). While discussing the processes of glocalization, globalization, or regionalization, it would be useful to keep in mind the methodological construct, “unit of analysis.” Depending on the unit of analysis, all these processes can be viewed as taking place at the same time. However, it would be useful for analytical purposes to separate local, national, regional, and global spheres as sui generis despite their interactions and interpenetrations in the present age. People living in a demarcated locality mobilize to put up organized resistance. Global or national movements become localized, just as, sometimes, local movements also become global movements.

We can view all the popular concepts—glocalization, hybridization, creolization, mélange, fusion, and indigenization—either as interchangeable or as context-specific concepts applicable to different contexts; for example, fusion is often used in the context of food or music, and creolization is popularly used with reference to language but also used with regard to food. Hybridization, with roots in botany, is used in popular cultures. However, we can also view them as cognate concepts belonging to a family of concepts. They broadly capture aspects of the intermingling of global and local processes, and the interpenetration of universal and particular. In providing the intellectual context for the rise of glocalization in the sociological discourse, Robertson (2014) claims that it arose in the mid-1990s as globalization was generally perceived—with exceptions—as resulting in homogenization and standardization, and since then it had to encounter “such motifs as polyethnicity; cosmopolitanism, interculturality, synchronicity, hybridity, transculturality, creolization; indigenization; vernacularization; diasporization, and yet others” ( Robertson 2013 : 1).

Globalization, as a process that leads to new formations, transforms institutions. Glocalization is closely linked to entangled modernity. It evokes an image of fusion, a creative hybridization or syncretization. Whereas hybridization or syncretization evokes a natural progression without conscious choice, glocalization can have both—a semi-natural cultural adaptation and synthesis, almost unwittingly, and a conscious or deliberate choice. An example of the latter is that during the early phase of the Meiji Restoration, one of the over-enthusiastic Japanese leaders—a future education minister—wanted to make English the national language of Japan. And the Meiji constitution of Japan was modeled upon European republics of the time. In Singapore, English was deliberately kept and used as an “official” language—which was consistent with Singapore’s export-led growth strategies—and several Western multinational corporations chose Singapore for the disciplined and English-speaking labor force as well as the excellent infrastructure. Although sometimes goals may be set at the global or international level, such as the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals or Sustainable Development Goals, the realization of these goals remains with the state and the local community. Hence, the importance of local- and national-level entities can never be underestimated. And the process of glocalization needs to be understood at both a voluntaristic level and the level of the long, drawn-out process of cultural diffusion and adaptation.

Glocalization has a spatial dimension. Arif Dirlik (2011) notes that globalization, paradoxically, has produced and/or thematized space, especially local space—the production of space in the sense of Henri Lefebvre (1991) can be viewed as a consequence of globalization and an example of glocalization. It may be argued that in most instances, one can demarcate spatially the zones of global, glocal, and local at the same time—sometimes coexisting peacefully and sometimes in tension. Taking, for example, universal law and norms governing gender relations in a populous country such as India, it would be easy to find areas less impacted by the forces of globalization where rules of tradition reign with deleterious consequences.

The impact of global capitalist forces on local communities has to be seen in terms of degrees of intensity. A villager in a remote village of Bangladesh or Nepal can be said to have taken part in the global political economy as a consumer of a global product. Beyond consumption of the industrial commodity, he has very little to do with the globalized economy; hence, his relationship could be defined as passive compared to that of a village woman who, by buying an internet-enabled mobile phone, is actively involved in a global technology-mediated transaction as a worker from the same village laboring in a global metropole—for example, Dubai or Singapore—as a construction worker. The intensity of the impact of the globalization process is varied, and such nuances have implications for the transformation of society. Some of the fissures in many developing societies—but not exclusive to developing societies—can be understood in terms of uneven globalizations.

Robertson’s concern was to understand attempts of the “real world” to bring global, in the sense of the macroscopic aspect of contemporary life, into conjunction with the local, in the sense of the microscopic aspect of contemporary life in the late twentieth century. The very formulation, apparently in Japan, of a term such as glocalize (from dochakuka , roughly meaning “global localization”) is perhaps the best example of this ( Robertson 1992 : 174). As Japan became a successful player in the global economy, it had an interest in innovations in all aspects of business, especially marketing its products. This had a direct bearing on “the general problem of the relationship between the universal and the particular” (p. 174).

Globalization of Institutions and Everyday Life

There are several institutional spheres in which glocalization is at play. A select number of cases based on the relevance to conceptual clarity are discussed next under seven rubrics. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is particularly relevant insofar as twenty-first-century globalization is concerned. All important spheres of life—such as religion, politics, law, education (especially higher education), technology, popular culture and its various components (e.g., food, music, sports, and even social movements, architecture, and museums)—are also affected. Even academic disciplines and curricula are glocalized, sometimes under directives of the state.

Glocalization of Religion

Clifford Geertz (1971) observed interesting differences in Islam as practiced in Java, Indonesia, and Morocco. The same religion in two regions of the world—North Africa and Southeast Asia—takes different forms due to the blending of local indigenous cultures with the universalistic religion. Broadly speaking, Islam in Bangladesh became historically divergent from Islam in Saudi Arabia, despite their common background of Sunni traditions of Islam. Women Living Under Muslim Laws, a transnational organization of Muslim women, highlights the differences of laws and the status of women in Muslim countries. Suffice it to point out that while women in the United Arab Emirates are allowed to fly fighter jets, women in neighboring Saudi Arabia had to wait for the right to drive automobiles until mid 2018. Scholars of Buddhism and Christianity find interesting differences in the practice of the same religion in different areas of the world and trace the changes that transform it in local cultural practices. Sometimes such blending of universal and local can produce unsavory outcomes, such as religious fundamentalism, which is “quintessentially a glocal concept” ( Beyer, 2007 : 108).

Glocalization of Economy

Bauman (2014) provocatively states, “ ‘Glocalization’ means local repair workshops servicing and recycling the output of global factories of problems.” Bauman comes to this conclusion by assessing the “localities,” especially large cities, as facing the brunt of such globally generated problems as immigration and environmental pollution. The reach of global capital to the remotest peripheries and the consequences have been analyzed ad nauseam.

Apart from the globalization of the economy, a theme well traversed since Adam Smith and Karl Marx, glocalization of the economy has added new dimensions. Glocalization in an economy is manifested in the rise of the informal economy, which covers a whole range of practices from the use of informal space to interactions and other practices. Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia was involved in the informal economy, selling products on the streets. One of the growing global trends has been the rise of the informal economy ( Neuwirth 2011 ). Conventional economic thinking links it to lack of economic development and views it as transitional, contending that it will disappear with economic development ( La Porta and Shleifer 2014 ). Although they are attributable to evasion of regulation and the inability of the state to enforce formal rules, informal economies present a vast arena of glocalization. Entrepreneurs armed with a high degree of ingenuity and informal education eke out a living by using global technology creatively, tapping the local conditions. An example is the case of so-called “Phone Ladies” in Bangladesh ( Zhao et al. 2015 : 49), where rural women sold telephony services by visiting door to door, a scheme pioneered by the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and supported by loans from Grameen Bank. This is a case of innovative application of a universal technology in a particular cultural context. In the sphere of finance, financial inclusion is often organized through micro-finance, which, according to the founder of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, provides “an ant’s perspective to the world.” The universalistic ideas of banking blending with the entrepreneurship of rural women are not only changing their economic fortune but also denting the patriarchal culture. The informalization of the economy emanates from the marginalization of certain groups in society, and in the present world, informatization or digitalization plays an important role in the informal economy. Nearly half (49.6%) of the world’s 3.6 billion internet users in mid-2016 were in Asia ( Internet World Stat 2016 ). The spread of the internet has also enabled the rise of what may be called formal–informal sectors in the service industries, especially related to the travel industry. Taxi services such as Uber and competitors of hotel services such as Airbnb are examples.

Matusitz (2016) defines glocalization thus: “By and large, ‘glocalization’ refers to the strategies a multinational corporation employs in order to cater to local idiosyncrasies abroad. The ultimate goal is to gain prominence, appeal and, of course, high annual revenues.” Using the example of Wal-Mart in Argentina, Matusitz explains how the company came with preconceived plans and practices that failed, and it became profitable only after it adjusted to the local conditions. In other words, for a global company, glocalization is good for revenue. IKEA, the Swedish furniture company, takes the tack that it “designed for people, not consumers” ( IKEA 2017 ). Globalization and the global marketplace create homogenized consumers; glocal companies target people in the local communities. Redesigning involves local cultural norms, local taste, habits of the people, and other cultural idiosyncrasies.

In the discussion of management, the evidence does not bear out the perception that universal practices drawn from best practices will be valid and useful everywhere, regardless of the cultural contexts. Research determined that management practices are often hybridized, incorporating local practices and beliefs. The re-embedding process in the local cultural milieu is a matter of necessity and acceptability. In terms of the application of this term, business studies played a key role by using it not only as a sociological concept but also as a business strategy. The idea, thus, has been much simplified. Insofar as business strategy is concerned, glocalization means that a company—for example, Wal-Mart—cannot apply its universal business strategies and methods of operation in another country or culture. One could question how universal those methods are in the first place. There are historical antecedents of this in Fordist policies derived from the assembly-line production of Henry Ford’s automobile factory in the United States in the early twentieth century. Later, management gurus introduced the Toyota principles. The Fordist model is, of course, the model of how to rationalize production, or optimize it, to make an organization more productive and improve its service delivery. The focus of the Toyota principles, among others, was how to market the product and improve the services of the shop floor. Glocalization has been used effectively in improving marketing. To do so, one has to take careful note of the local context and the cultural practices. What are the taboos, what are the preferences, and what kind of policies will resonate with local culture? In other words, management cannot just operate with a preconceived set of policies and ideas. It must be open to new ideas and ready to change its policies in light of new information and cultural awareness. When introduced in Germany, Wal-Mart was a failure, but it became successful in Argentina because it succeeded in glocalizing its operations and marketing ( Matusitz 2016 ).

The glocalization of business management and corporatization has a close parallel in government administration or governance. It is often assumed that the ideal governance system can be, in principle, drawn from the best practices found elsewhere. These ideas ignore the constraint or reality of local culture. Dani Rodrik (2008) argues that the best practices need to be adjusted and tamed by the local cultural context. Here, Rodrik places particular emphasis on creativity because there is no end to creative solutions—and these will not be an a priori set of policies or practices. There is no such thing as best practices heedless of cultural and geopolitical context. This idea clearly implies the role of glocalization.

Practices such as Jugaad , an Indian word for “make do,” that localize production and other services to deliver to customers in an affordable way present an example of glocalization of production ( Radjou et al. 2012 ). Rather than the globalizing production of standardized goods and services, such flexible systems change the scale of production, making it more customer-centered using local resources and locally available materials and lowering costs of transportation and centralized modes of production. This model innovative rescaling of production has huge potential, especially for low- and mid-level consumer products.

Globalization of State and Political Discourse

The relationship between the state and the global is complex. Using the template of glocalization, one can examine the interpenetration of global forces in the constitution of the state.

Different states play different roles in the global inter-state system. A state in the Global South is both a trainer and a container of the laboring class to make them available as forces in the global forces of production, and at the same time, it is also a site of global corporate players. The territoriality and stability of state are of immense importance. Overenthusiasm on the part of some writers blinded them to the integrational role of the state in the maintenance of capitalism. As a provider of rules to manage the affairs of the business and discipline the labor force, the state works as a facilitator for capitalist penetration and economic globalization.

Glocalization of Politics

In the political sphere, the relativization of universal concepts such as democracy, the rule of law, and human rights provides exemplars of glocalization. This is best illustrated in the discussions of democracy “with Chinese characteristics” or variants of that discourse. Although the rhetoric of democracy has appeal throughout the world, and the majority of nations have nominally accepted the principles of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, much of the world remains politically unfree, with sluggish penetration of democratic values and institutions. The argument that democracy has to be embedded in or tailored to local traditions and culture is a challenge to the universalistic idea of democracy. Although countries such Japan, India, and Costa Rica have built solid democratic traditions, incorporating and glocalizing the norms with local traditions, for the rest of the world democracy is, at best, a work in progress. In Southeast Asia, some countries have engaged in a good deal of political engineering to make the transition to formal democracy. Because the discourse of democracy has a direct bearing on the contestation of political power, indigenization of political institutions has an ominous ring to it. Glocalization discourse has also dominated the human rights debate with a conservative slant. There are states that welcome the universal standard, and there are others that use the excuse of local traditions that are supposedly antithetical to the universal standard, giving rise to the question, One standard or many standards? Concerns regarding security issues, environmental security, and market freedom also limit political freedom and freedom of expression.

Glocalization of Governance

This introduces a certain degree of flexibility, which leads to flexible governance—that is, governance that is not superimposed from above but is citizen-centered and problem-based. For example, India has a ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship, which is a result of addressing the needs of the country. This is a glocal response to the demands of globalization. There was a time when globalizing pressure from above prompted most countries to create a ministry of environment or of women’s affairs. However, how much these ministries have been able to address local issues remains an open question. Glocalization of governance entails fine-tuning and decentralization of administration in order to increase efficiency. The current emphasis on building national and local capacities so as to partake in global processes in a more creative way is an important move toward glocalization.

Glocalization of Culture

Singapore provides a good example of the globalization of and resistance to global culture. Singapore, one of the most globalized places according to the Foreign Policy Index, has been watchful in ensuring that certain aspects of popular culture and independent civil society organizations remain offshore; this was especially the case during its formative years. The authorities promoted what they called “civic society” to fill the space of an autonomous and vociferous civil society during a period of rapid economic and educational globalization. Singapore remains a paradigm of successful globalization and planned glocalization.

Singapore’s leadership was pragmatic in retaining English as the lingua franca to more effectively integrate with the global economy, and it nurtured a legalistic, bureaucratic polity that earned global attention and admiration for creating a rule-based political system under a formal democracy. A certain amount of political engineering and innovation took place in the political system, which can be viewed as a conscious attempt at glocalization. The glocal outcome was an illiberal democracy, an open market economy, and an emerging open culture.

This perspective is predicated on not viewing globalization as a gargantuan force obliterating everything in its path but, rather, providing agency to the local conditions in absorbing and adapting global forces to local conditions. A somewhat parallel process was also observed in the past when modernizing elites in many developing societies made a conscious choice of selective borrowings amid heated debates between progressive modernists and conservative traditionalists. Upon closer examination, it was revealed that the so-called traditionalists were also to some extent constructed by the earlier modernist waves. A case in point is gender relations in public. In the Indian subcontinent, some of the so-called “traditional” or “conservative” values owe their origin to English laws instituted by the colonial rulers inspired by Victorian morality. So what appeared to be a traditional Indian value at first blush was, in fact, Victorian moral values dressed up in the cloth of traditionalism. India has been touched by the Valentine’s Day fever, in which (heterosexual) lovers hold hands, go to parks, exchange gifts, and sometimes show their mutual affection in public. These “foreign” activities often infuriate conservative Hindus, whose presence in Indian politics is more visible today than two decades ago. These groups often intimidate, beat up, and chase away the lovers from public places in the name of preserving tradition. There are also instances of co-emergence of similar values across cultures. It is the same right-wing Hindu groups that, while remaining vigilant to preserve local traditions, also took an active interest in the politics of distant lands such as the United States, expressing their support for Mr. Donald Trump by organizing a special puja (a religious rite) in 2016. 2 The transcendence of local space to a larger global space is a feature of globalization as well as glocalization. Giddens (1999: 96) defines globalization essentially as “action at distance.” In the global age, such action is a two-way process, with no fixed direction.

Glocalization of Popular Culture

Food, music, and movies are important components of popular culture and provide instances for understanding the processes of globalization and glocalization. Robertson put forth the example of CNN and Hollywood, which try to localize (sometimes badly) to the extent that they essentialize cultures. But there are also plenty of examples in which music thrives because of glocalization and globalization. In culinary culture, we see fusion food at one level but also how international food chains accommodate local culture, if often in a symbolic rather than substantial way. Food today is not only structured by both “globalizing” and “localizing” social, political–economic, and cultural forces but also very often figures as a symbol of these forces ( Inglis 2010 : 493).

McDonald’s is a good example of both globalization and glocalization. For example, the Big Mac was invented in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, because steel mill workers were not satisfied with the size of McDonald’s regular burgers. Similarly, the Filet-o-Fish was added to the menu after a franchisee in Cincinnati, Ohio, found that Catholic customers were not patronizing McDonald’s on Fridays because they were avoiding meat products per religious custom ( Crothers 2010 : 131). The spread of McDonald’s in Asia began with Japan, where the first outlet opened in 1971, and since then it has become a part of Japanese culture. The subtle impact of McDonald’s on Hong Kong culture was explored by Watson (1997) . In Singapore, McDonald’s became a favorite reading corner of the studious Singaporean students. In Malaysia during the Ramadan, McDonald’s employees wear religious garb because it is a popular place for young Malaysians to break their day-long fast by eating Big Macs and other fare. Fast-food culture has now become glocalized, impacting local food habits and transforming local culture.

Glocalization of Sports and Games

Football (in some places known as soccer) is “the global game” ( Giulianotti and Robertson 2004 : 546). And football is a glocal game, providing a conceptual bridge between global and local. “Universalization of particularism” entails cultural relativism, which “turns the global game into the ‘glocal game’ ” (p. 547).

In Afghanistan under the Taliban, when a soccer match was in progress, the Taliban police showed up and beat the ball players (male) not so much for playing football but for playing the game wearing shorts in full view of the spectators. This was, surely, an extreme—and perhaps exceptional—case of glocalization. The Taliban interpreted wearing shorts as a violation of Islamic sartorial norms. In other words, a universal game can be adopted, but it has to be adapted in accordance with the local cultural norms as interpreted by the political authority. Similarly, in several Muslim-majority countries, whether girls can play football or participate in swimming events wearing swimming costumes remain sources of controversy. This raises the issue of political power at the heart of glocalization. In the real world, cultural transactions or interpenetrations do not take place outside of the politico-economic contexts. The upshot in this case is not to reject football or swimming, which is an option in some countries, but to accept the global spread of sports while accommodating them in each case to local norms. When the decisions are made by a narrow—but powerful—layer of clerics, there is one set of outcomes; when there is a larger space for public discussion, the outcomes are different.

Cricket, with its global spread through colonial connections, is now also seen outside of the Commonwealth sphere in countries such as the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, and Afghanistan. The change of the format of the game to accommodate shorter time spans such as limited over games may be seen as an example of “temporal glocalization” to make cricket suit the changing times and locales in high-paced modern society. In becoming a global game rather than a projection of imperial culture, cricket became disembedded from its postcolonial moorings. As mentioned, cricket has been introduced in the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to China—in the latter two cases under state patronage. Cricket, a step in the development of cosmopolitan global culture, also provides a bridge between global and local: “At one level, cricket is about nationalism and ethnic pride, at another level, it is also a metaphor for globalization” ( Khondker 2010 : 155).

The highly corporatized Indian Premier League (IPL) attracts top cricket players from throughout the world to play for local clubs. The IPL is a spectacle of consumerism and showbiz—some of the cricket teams are owned by Bollywood celebrities. The spectacle has not only introduced a new game format but also added a sideshow of cheerleaders often imported from eastern European countries. The commentators, drawn from mostly English-speaking areas of the Commonwealth, are garbed in traditional Indian dress to add to the spectacle. The music played for the entertainment of the audience and players includes both popular Indian songs and international hits. India has become the mecca of glocalized cricket.

Glocalization of Music

In music, which is the lodestar of popular culture, glocalization has taken place in several formats. First, consider the historical transmigration of musical instruments such as the harmonium, an essential part of “classical” Indian music, or even Pakistani spiritual music, “Qawali,” which is inconceivable without harmonium as an accompaniment. The Europeans introduced this portable reed instrument into the Indian subcontinent because carrying an organ of nineteenth-century vintage was a difficult proposition. Missionaries found it useful in spreading the gospel, a practical substitute for a huge sedentary church organ. The harmonium originated in the Nordic world and was probably inspired by a Chinese hand-held reed musical instrument, sheng , introduced to Europe by Marco Polo ( Gaitonde 2016 ). Whereas the harmonium’s entry to the subcontinental musical repertoire was imperceptible, the tabla, a small percussion instrument, was deliberately adopted in parts of western music to give it an oriental feel. The other classical instrument of Indian music, the sitar, may have roots in Iran.

The other form is contemporary fusion music—for example, the collaboration between Ravi Shankar and George Harrison of the Beatles. Commercial interests have fueled the contemporary blending or fusion because it helps expand the consumer market by appealing to multiple ethnic and national music markets. The spread of certain genres of music worldwide can be seen as an example of thin globalization or Westernization or, more generically, cultural diffusion. The spread of American pop music throughout the world is an example. However, there is also a spread of mixtures or local adaptation—globalization—of the pop genre that has produced Japanese pop (known as J-pop) and Korean pop (K-pop). Moreover, apart from being popular in Korea, K-pop is now making rounds in Europe and the Middle East, attracting large crowds. Even in Asia, K-pop along with Korean televised drama helped create a Pan-Asian popular culture—what one may consider as another illustration of translocalization. There is Arabic hip-hop and Hindi or Chinese rap. Singapore, a country most open to a thin version of globalization, had its national and patriotic songs rendered in rap, presumably to court young Singaporeans.

Glocalization of Cinema

In cinema, glocalization has followed the globalization or spread of the technique of moving photography, which originated in France in 1895, moving to the United States—first to New Jersey and then to sunnier Hollywood—in the first decades of the twentieth century. The first film was made in India in 1913, coincidentally the same year that the Nobel prize was awarded to the first Asian—a Bengali Indian, in fact, named Rabindranath Thakur, or Tagore in Anglicized form. Tagore, a universalist and a humanist, helped build bridges between the East and the West.

In addition to cinema, television shows and serials have been in circulation in the global cultural space. In recent years, Turkish television dramas, dubbed into Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, have become very popular in South America ( Tali 2016 ). These shows not only play a part in Turkish soft power but also earned $250 billion in 2015. South American viewers find more cultural affinity with the Turkish television shows than they do with American television shows. Turkish dramas are currently watched in 140 countries throughout the world, drawing a viewership of 400 million. In the 1990s, Brazilian television shows were also popular in Malaysia and Indonesia. This is more than just a trade in popular cultures. The very fact that South American viewers could identify more with the Turkish characters than they could with North American ones shows a tendency toward a new sense of identity and individual choices. The themes of migration and modernization are more immediate to the experiences of the audience in South America, as they are in Malaysia. The popularity of Turkish dramas in South America is another example of transglocalization.

Glocalization of Technology

The history of technology reveals that its spread has always been a marker of globalization. Human societies have always borrowed, adapted, and perfected each other’s technologies to the extent that except for specialist historians, users do not care about the place of origin of their technologies. To demonstrate a universalizing tendency, an iPhone 6 is an iPhone 6 or a smartphone OS model is the same everywhere and has the same functionality. Yet, there are interesting variations in the usage of the technological device. For example, the use of an iPhone or even an ordinary phone to transfer money has become highly popular in Bangladesh and Kenya, where people feel less secure with other modes of money transfer. Phone transfer is faster and relatively more reliable than other modes. Very few in the advanced societies would even consider this option. The use of a smartphone in telemedicine or to provide health care where the doctor can be connected with a patient in a remote area via Skype and can provide services and transmit health information orally not only speeds up the process but also overcomes the barrier of illiteracy. It creates a new image-centered world from a logocentric world; in this new world, information is presented visually, not textually. As long as people understand oral communication, it works well. In this, we see the world moving to visuality and orality rather than legibility.

In another example of glocalization of technology, young tech-savvy Cameroonians are developing mobile technology-based applications locally at a place called “Silicon Mountain”; 3 these applications are now used across many developing countries. This paves the way for transglocalization, in which countries of the Global South are leveraging each other’s innovations. Satellite technology and a combination of internet-mediated distribution of news and documentaries have created a far better representation of the local in the global. Stringers and crowdsourcing empower the local in presenting itself to the global arena, as opposed to the global staging the local.

Glocalization of Higher Education

In the field of higher education, one may find interesting changes. Some writers have pointed out the need to embed education in the ethos of the host culture ( Patel and Lynch 2013 ). Patel and Lynch, in an important paper, make a strong case for glocalization in higher education. As experts in higher education, they could see the failure of a modular preconceived package of higher education to be promoted internationally without consideration of the local cultures and constraints. They argued that glocalization was a better alternative to internationalization because glocalization allows retaining local traditions while adopting, incorporating, and embedding the best practices of the norms of international higher education to the local cultural context. For them, “Glocalization empowers and encourages all stakeholders to work harmoniously toward a sustainable future” (p. 223). These writers argued that glocalization not only promotes the linkages of small local communities to a network of communities—thus advancing globalization—but also helps remove ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

A number of countries in Asia have successfully built world-class universities in a short period of time by reaching out to benchmark universities and thus adopting the strategies of the top universities in the world while also not completely overlooking the local traditions inherited from the colonial days in founding those universities. Some of the most successful universities are glocal universities. Other countries have tried to globalize too fast without realizing what it takes to build a world-class institution. A mere cut-and-paste approach is inherently limited in scope. The National University of Singapore was able to integrate several strands of influence to transform it from a teaching to research and now an entrepreneurial university.

In higher education in particular and education in general, Singapore, Korea, and now China have been successful with regard to blended education, and the university system has grown in tandem with the knowledge production system, especially scientific research. Initial emphasis was to promote research that would have direct relevance to national development. The problem-solving research received a great deal of attention and funding.

An awareness of glocalization points to limitations of both excessive universalism and its opposite, parochialism and ethnocentrism. The indigenization movement emerged as a by-product of nationalism and as a response to mindless universalism that had little time or respect for local traditions.

Glocalization and Globalization: Implications for Global Studies

The previous discussion has illustrated the point that globalization and glocalization are entangled in the empirical world, yet analytically the two concepts are separable. Glocalization, with its conceptual focus of intermingling, has great relevance for the transdisciplinary field of global studies. As scholars of global studies seek to understand the transnational social, cultural, and political processes, they also cannot ignore taking into consideration the local conditions, milieu, and traditions. As they are drawn to exploring how the local interpenetrates with the global, glocalization is poised to provide a useful conceptual framework. The focus of global studies is to understand the relationship among the state, society, and economy, as well as the ideational contexts. The institutional linkages and the emergent complexities ( Curran 2008 ; Urry 2003 ) can be illustrated by the concept of glocalization. The thin theory of globalization views globalization as the spread of global modernity. Globalization remains indistinguishable from worldwide modernization, with plenty of empirical examples available, including the worldwide spread of mobile phones, the internet, satellite television, family planning, consumer products, and pop music. This thin theory of globalization—globalization lite —has found its way into popular imaginations via the works of journalists ( Friedman 2005 ). A thick theory or sociological theory of globalization dates back to the 1980s in the writings of Roland Robertson, John Meyer (1980) , and others.

For Beyer (2007) , whereas modernization excluded various “others” that were deemed either premodern/traditional or only on the way to modernization, globalization includes us all, even our “others.” Beyer’s interesting distinction between globalization and modernization that he draws upon Robertson (1995: 27) has bearing on the concept of glocalization. “Modernization,” according to Beyer, temporalized its universalism: Eventually, all would/could become modern. Globalization spatializes it: The local has to come to terms with the global. It (re)constitutes itself in the way that it does this. The reverse side of this mutual relation is that the global cannot be global except as plural versions of the local. Hence, globalization is always also glocalization ( Robertson 1995 )—the global expressed in the local and the local as the particularization of the global ( Beyer 2007 : 98).

In spatial terms, glocal is separable from global. Glocalization opens up creative possibilities of innovation and value addition from blending and synthesis. It also ushers hope for a multicultural, cosmopolitan world by promoting transglocal cooperation. In this regard, global studies stands to gain from the conceptual innovations of glocalization. The glocal view is of particular importance because it champions innovation and facilitates knowledge sharing and opportunities for learning from each other’s experience, and it also incorporates a subaltern view of the world. The subaltern position may be a ballast against the top-down, new liberal globalization, in the future modifying it to a more pluralistic approach.

Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation ( http://www.glocalismjournal.net ), with some of the most prominent global intellectuals on its Direction Committee (editorial board), including Amartya Sen, Saskia Sassen, Roland Robertson, Manuel Castells, and Gayatri Spivak.

In that sense, the puja (Hindu worship) ceremony organized in Delhi by the right-wing, Hindu nationalist group for Donald Trump, in which his image was decorated with vermillion and placed alongside more established Hindu gods, is an example of globalization ( Doshi 2016 ). The group admired the controversial Republican presidential candidate in 2016 not so much for his piety but for his anti-Muslim stance. The Hindu chauvinists found a kindred soul in Trump in their common hatred of Muslims. This episode can also be seen as an instance of glocalization. Puja, a particularistic religious rite of the Hindu community, has undergone a certain level of glocalization because the ceremony is infused with contemporary themes and global technology.

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Globalization.

Globalization is a term used to describe the increasing connectedness and interdependence of world cultures and economies.

Anthropology, Sociology, Social Studies, Civics, Economics

Freight Trains

Freight trains waiting to be loaded with cargo to transport around the United Kingdom. This cargo comes from around the world and contains all kinds of goods and products.

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Globalization is a term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place. Globalization also captures in its scope the economic and social changes that have come about as a result. It may be pictured as the threads of an immense spider web formed over millennia, with the number and reach of these threads increasing over time. People, money, material goods, ideas, and even disease and devastation have traveled these silken strands, and have done so in greater numbers and with greater speed than ever in the present age. When did globalization begin? The Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes across China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean used between 50 B.C.E. and 250 C.E., is perhaps the most well-known early example of exchanging ideas, products, and customs. As with future globalizing booms, new technologies played a key role in the Silk Road trade. Advances in metallurgy led to the creation of coins; advances in transportation led to the building of roads connecting the major empires of the day; and increased agricultural production meant more food could be trafficked between locales. Along with Chinese silk, Roman glass, and Arabian spices, ideas such as Buddhist beliefs and the secrets of paper-making also spread via these tendrils of trade. Unquestionably, these types of exchanges were accelerated in the Age of Exploration, when European explorers seeking new sea routes to the spices and silks of Asia bumped into the Americas instead. Again, technology played an important role in the maritime trade routes that flourished between old and newly discovered continents. New ship designs and the creation of the magnetic compass were key to the explorers’ successes. Trade and idea exchange now extended to a previously unconnected part of the world, where ships carrying plants, animals, and Spanish silver between the Old World and the New also carried Christian missionaries. The web of globalization continued to spin out through the Age of Revolution, when ideas about liberty , equality , and fraternity spread like fire from America to France to Latin America and beyond. It rode the waves of industrialization , colonization , and war through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, powered by the invention of factories, railways, steamboats, cars, and planes. With the Information Age, globalization went into overdrive. Advances in computer and communications technology launched a new global era and redefined what it meant to be “connected.” Modern communications satellites meant the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo could be watched in the United States for the first time. The World Wide Web and the Internet allowed someone in Germany to read about a breaking news story in Bolivia in real time. Someone wishing to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to London, England, could do so in hours rather than the week or more it would have taken a hundred years ago. This digital revolution massively impacted economies across the world as well: they became more information-based and more interdependent. In the modern era, economic success or failure at one focal point of the global web can be felt in every major world economy. The benefits and disadvantages of globalization are the subject of ongoing debate. The downside to globalization can be seen in the increased risk for the transmission of diseases like ebola or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), or in the kind of environmental harm that scientist Paul R. Furumo has studied in microcosm in palm oil plantations in the tropics. Globalization has of course led to great good, too. Richer nations now can—and do—come to the aid of poorer nations in crisis. Increasing diversity in many countries has meant more opportunity to learn about and celebrate other cultures. The sense that there is a global village, a worldwide “us,” has emerged.

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Defining Globalisation

2007, The World Economy

Related Papers

Jan Aart Scholte

Jan Mosedale

H. Piezonka / L. Käppel / A. Ricci (eds.) ROOTS of Routes: Mobility and Networks between the Past and the Future. ROOTS booklet series 2, 12-15

Is global exchange globalisation? Objects have always been passed on over long distances, but what does this mean? Historians, especially historians of economy, use the term ‘globalisation’ quite differently today: Is the early modern European expansion into Africa, America and Asia already to be understood as globalisation, or is only the imperialist seizure in the 19th century CE to be described as such? Was the 19th century CE perhaps even more globalised than the 21st century CE? Or can the expansion of the Roman Empire, or even the Empire of Alexander the Great, be understood as a globalisation process? What about the Persian Empire that preceded it?

Agnieszka Rzepka

Globalisation is a multidimensional process which is present in many spheres and which is defined in many ways: it has developed with different degrees of intensity since the end of the 19th century and took on a particular importance in the closing decades of the 20th centur. Globalisation creates both opportunities and threats for its participants. One of the tendencies that has been getting stronger in the world for at least a quarter of a century is a progressive socio-economic differentiation and the splitting of the world into two separate blocks: the world of poverty and the world of riches. The social structure is undergoing changes. The distances between the individual segments of the market and those who are left outside the market are growing. The benefits from economic growth are not being spread equally.

Jonathan V Beaverstock

Although in its simplistic sense globalization refers to the widening, deepening and speeding up of global interconnectedness, such a definition begs further elaboration. ... Globalization can be located on a continuum with the local, national and regional. At one end of the continuum lie social and economic relations and networks which are organized on a local and/or national basis; at the other end lie social and economic relations and networks which crystallize on the wider scale of regional and global interactions. Globalization can be taken to refer to those spatio-temporal processes of change which underpin a transformation in the organization of human affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and continents. Without reference to such expansive spatial connections, there can be no clear or coherent formulation of this term. ... A satisfactory definition of globalization must capture each of these elements: extensity (stretching), intensity, veloci...

Gérard-François DUMONT

In the twenty-first century, the global context is dominated by three new phenomena or new nature in the history of mankind: globalization, internationalization and worldwide development. Question the current and future planetary situation requires prior clarification of these three concepts without which it is impossible to understand the contemporary world and the current changes. Au seuil du XXIe siècle, le contexte mondial est dominé par trois phénomènes nouveaux ou de nature nouvelle dans l’Histoire de l’humanité : la globalisation, l’internationalisation et la mondialisation. S’interroger sur la situation planétaire actuelle et future suppose une clarification préalable de ces trois concepts sans laquelle il est impossible de comprendre le monde contemporain et les changements actuels.

kavitha acharya

Globalization or globalisation is the trend of increasing interaction between people or companies on a worldwide scale due to advances in transportation and communication technology, nominally beginning with the steamship and the telegraph in the early to mid-1800s. With increased interactions between nation-states and individuals came the growth of international trade, ideas, and culture. Globalization is primarily an economic process of integration that has social and cultural aspects, but conflicts and diplomacy are also large parts of the history of globalization. Economically, globalization involves goods and services, and the economic resources of capital, technology, and data. [1][2] The steam locomotive, steamship, jet engine, and container ships are some of the advances in the means of transport while the rise of the telegraph and its modern offspring, the Internet and mobile phones show development in telecommunications infrastructure. All of these improvements have been major factors in globalization and have generated further interdependence of economic and cultural activities. [3][4][5]

Key concepts in geography

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