Blog I - What is globalisation?

1. Since Robert Robertson launched the term ‘globalisation’ a lot of people, with different studying disciplines, tried to find a universal definition of the term. Robertson described globalisation as “the compression of the word and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole”. This definition was published in 1992. Out the official academic view it is a relative new topic. Even though through the history of the world there are a lot of events happened that showed a coalescence of the different parts of human settlements. For example, already in the 13^th century the exchange between different parts of the world happened with big trade routes.

But why it is so difficult to find a coherent definition? Until today there is no unique definition for the term. 

Globalisation is united three different main dimensions: cultural, political and economic globalisation. Each of these three dimensions contains a huge number of various topics, which have even more interrelations within the dimension and to the both other dimensions. This is the reason why various sciences are handling the topic. In the following I will focus on the sociologic point of view. 

Also within the sociology science there is no common definition. Most sociologist describe the term as an ongoing process. Velho draw the picture that globalisation is the direction of a movement. White and Robertson mention in their text, that its important to consider, that the globalisation is defined by a privileged society. In the world-system theory, the world is ranged into core, semi-periphery and periphery, based on economic power. Often a strong economy goes hand in hand with a good political situation. In turn nations with a stable and functional political system build up a good education system. This high educated societies have better opportunities to do studies (about globalisation). Meanwhile from the economical point of view the core nation are depended from the both periphery classes. The periphery is supressed and exploited from the core. The wealth of the both upper classed is settle on the input of the periphery. The world system model, besides some other models / theories, outlines inequalities around the world. They were forced by access to natural (limited) resources. Nowadays environmental questions getting more important too.

Political the world is ordered by the different nations. The principle is called ‘container’ of human beings. Several people live together in a political system with various rules and norms. Nowadays most of the nations have capitalism as their economic systems. The capitalism is a system, which is based on international exchange and reinforce it at the same time. Capitalistic economies are growing through import and especially export. To measure international economic trade, investments, financial flows, etc. were documented. The politic and the economic dimension are strongly affecting each other. Nations with a strong economy have normally a strong international impact in political issues. Despite the most sovereignty and territory disputes are solved or decided, still a lot of wars take place. 

At this point the cultural aspect become apparent. Societies have different ways of understanding the world. The interpretations of living and humanity were developed over centuries. A huge impact to this development is caused by the main religion of the country. Religion always had and still is creating conflicts, even within counties. 

The cultural dimension of globalisation generally deals this the human beings and their organisation in societies. In globalisation studies the interaction between different societies is examined. The concept of humanity is the main factor for functional societies. Besides the concept of humanity is still valid a new trend of individualisation is visible all around the world. People try to express themselves and define their own concept of the world. Meanwhile the impact of communications increases rapidly. Humans where influence by society. Especially by the internet and social media. This fact carries us back to the (religious) conflicts. Radicals with different backgrounds discovered the simple possibly to manipulate people through modern media channels. Different relatively small, compared to the world population, radical groups (as IS) have a big impact through this to the global society. Huntington described this phenomenon as the ‘clash of civilizations’.  

Nevertheless for the most societies the cultural globalisation is a peaceful process. That opens the possibility to new experiences. The process begun with the Americanisation or also called the McDonaldization. Due the economy cultural aspects of the American culture were carried into the world by companies as McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. Nowadays the impact of the Asian world is growing rapidly. Also with cultural goods as KPOP or their food. At mainly all exported cultural goods you can see adaptions to the local culture. This point of cultural globalisation explains in a smart way why global and local must not always means something different. 

All in all the globalisation makes the world becoming a single place, whereas this doesn´t include every region / society all over the world. Sometimes the term is only compressed to a negative synonymous for all the problems in our world. Instead the discussion about the meaning of globalisation is a important factor to understand and solve international matters.

2. The discussed topics were all familiar to me. However the theory of the ‘clash of civilisation’ and the growing impact of radicals all around the world I never considered from the globalisation point of view. 

3. In the text the trauma of the 9/11 was mentioned as a consequence of a religious conflict. Do you thing you can break the conflict between western major powers, mainly the USA, and the middle east down to only religious reasons?