Lecture 1 on Globalization

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Lecture 1 on Globalization

• Anthony Giddens

• Presented by
• Sofia Lulseged Abriha
• Seid Hussein Yimam

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Globalisation

• The term has come from nowhere to be almost
  everywhere
• Because it is a new concept the meanins of the
  notion is not clear
• Has something to do with the theses that we now
  all live in one world
• Different thinkers have different views
• Sceptics and Radicals

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Sceptics

• They dispute the whole thing about globalisation
  (there is no thing called globalisation, it is
  just a talk)
• The global economy is as just it is (the world is
  much the same as it was many years back)
• There is no world market or world society
• Most countries gain only small amount of their
  income from external trade, there is regional
  trade rather than global trade
• Is an ideology put by free marketers who wish to
  dismantle welfare systems and cut back on state
  expenditures
• Support their argument by The world is as it was
  a century ago, there was an open global economy
  at the end of the nineteenth century

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Radicals

• It is REAL and can be felt everywhere
• Global market economy more developed than ever
• It is unresponsive to the presence of national
  borders
• Nations have somehow lost the sovereignty they
  had
• Politicians no more influence events
• Nations have become fictions, the era of
  nation-state is over
• And Giddens supports RADICALS

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Because

• We are experiencing is in many respects
• It is new and is revolutionary as well
• Examples level of finance and capital flows,
  electronic money and the fact that one can send
  money across the globe in one click which can
  destabilize economies
• But both groups of thinkers have something that
  they are not right of

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However He argues

• Both groups have not understood the implications
  for us
• Both groups see it only in economic terms
• It is political, cultural, technological as well
  as economic
• It is not only about big systems the world
  financial order but it is as well here with
  us, Family systems, women

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Giddens argues contd.

• It doesnt only have negative impacts like
  pulling away power from local communities and
  nations which it has
• But it also has positive impacts like creating
  new pressures for local autonomy, the revival of
  local cultural identities
• New economic and cultural zones within regions
  like Hong Kong region, Silicon Valley region

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Influence of Communication Systems

• Since the invention of the Morse code to the
  Internet, the length of time to hit 50 million
  users has been decreasing
• 40 years for radio
• 15 years for PC and
• Just 4 years for the Internet to hit 50m users
• Communication is vital that it creates
  celebrities who may be more familiar than our
  immediate neighbour
• Examples the fall of the Soviet camp, television
  revolution

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Reason for changes

• A range of factors some structural, others
  historical, economic influences
• These are strengthened by the collapse of the
  Eastern bloc after the Cold War
• A new economic order where the US is the only
  giant

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Globalization Image

• May seem Westernization or even
  Americanization for those outside North America
  and West Europe, seems true since most
  multinational companies have their roots to USA
• Or maybe creating a North South divide, where
  the countries in South have little or no role in
  it statistics show the poorest have become more
  poor

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Impacts

• It is not only a phenomenon of big systems, but
  also is here with us, E.g. family
• It doesnt only have a pull away effect (local
  communities losing power), but also has a push
  down effect (creating new pressures for local
  communities Scots, Quebec)
• It also squeezes sideways creating new economic
  and cultural zones (Hong Kong area, Catalonia,
  Silicon Valley)

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Concerns

• Communications and media affect the government
  itself
• It deepens world inequalities usually in economic
  globalization
• It can undermine local subsistence economy
• Protectionism is introduced in some countries,
  e.g. Malaysia

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Concluding remarks

• Nation states are still there and powerful
• Political leaders have large role in the world
• However they have been reshaped, older
  geopolitics are becoming obsolete forcing nation
  states to rethink their identity
• Nations no longer have enemies
• A new global cosmopolitan society in which we are
  the first ones to live in it,
• It is emerging as an anarchic, haphazard,
  fashion, carried along by a mixture of economic,
  technological and cultural imperatives
• Powerlessness that happened because of the
  institutions we have rather than us which we can
  impose by
• Creating new ones or reconstructing the ones we
  have
• With this we can achieve greater control of our
  Runaway World

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Thank You!!!!!!!!!!! and Any Questions?