Approaches to the Study of Globalization

By: Manfred B. Steger

(As summarized by Dr. Jerome Serrano)

• Globalization is a contested concept despite decades of scholarly scrutiny.

• Since the 1990s, scholars were not united in terms of the methodological utility of the concept,
globalization; in terms of gauging the extent, impact, and direction of globalization on the basis
of available empirical evidence, and its normative implications. By normative, we refer to the
process by which the outcome of a particular phenomenon (in this case, globalization) is
designated as good, desirable, or permissible and others as bad, undesirable or impermissible.
• Failure to arrive at a broad scholarly consensus about the nature of globalization points to the
contentious nature of this subject and the “turn away” from a generalizing narrative of the
“modern period” with a highly structural orientation.
• Using a single analytic approach to make sense of globalization seemed of little utility given that
the latter is comprised of a complex set of social forces. It is imperative/compulsory to situate the
discourse of globalization within the two separate but related arenas of debates as gleaned within
the last two decades: one occurs within the academia while the other occurs within the popular
arena of public discourse.
• Although the academic debate tends to focus on the analytical rather than the normative or
ideological dimension of globalization, there are common themes and overlapping observations
on the subject matter. There is a steady rise in the number of books and journal articles written
on globalization, which signifies a strong interest in this subject area.
• The academic debate is largely underscored by an intellectual divide between the North and the
South. Most of the scholars of globalization are from the North (such as US and UK), which implies
the dominance of Anglo-American ideas in this area of inquiry. This academic divide also portrays
existing power relations in the world, which very much reflect the influence of the North on the
discourse on globalization. While the intellectuals share a common intellectual framework, they
hold different views regarding the definition of globalization, as well as their valuations of its
impact, its scale, chronology, and its policy outcomes.
• Part of the reason why globalization is highly nuanced (and therefore, generating much
disagreement among scholars) is because it is mostly viewed or represented as a “fragmented,
incomplete, uneven and contradictory set of social processes”. For others, globalization is
represented as a “fragmegrative dynamics” to highlight its contradictions, ambiguities,
complexities and uncertainties. For some, globalization as a concept should not be treated as
something external that could be captured by a correct analytical framework but rather, it has
“meaning of its own”, it has its own historicity prior to its constitution as a “conceptual territory”.
Since it is a concept that does not clearly fall within a specific academic discipline, globalization
has attracted analytical inquiry from the social sciences, humanities and even natural sciences.
• Generally acceptable definition of globalization: (a) it describes a variety of changing economic,
political and cultural processes that have accelerated since the 1970s; (b) it broadly describes
“increasing global interconnectedness”, “the expansions and intensification of social relations
across world-time and world-space”, “the compression of time and space”, “ distant proximities”,
“a complex range of processes, driven by a mixture of political and economic influences”, and “the
 swift and relatively unimpeded flow of capital, people, and ideas across national borders”
(Giddens, 1990; Harvey, 1989; Held and McGrew, 2007; Lechner and Boli, 2011; Robertson, 1992;
Steger, 2013; Waters, 2001). There were objections to these general characterizations of
globalization with others even denying its existence but clearly, there is an emerging area of
consensus regarding its most basic attributes.
• The purpose of the reading is to immerse students to the principal academic approaches to the
subject of globalization as proposed by leading global studies scholars since the 1990s. The article
ends by what the author finds lacking in the current course on globalization by highlighting the
need to complement social scientific inquiries with interpretive explorations of its ideational and
normative dimensions.

GLOBALIZATION AS GLOBALONEY

• A small and rapidly decreasing number of scholars contend that the current representation of
globalization is incorrect, imprecise or exaggerated. Equating all forms of transnational
processes as evidence of globalization amounts to “globaloney” – which means, that such
observations, while influential, are not necessarily correct. Criticisms against the notion that
increasing transnational activities and processes are indicants of globalization can be classified
according to three (3) broad categories: (a) The Rejectionists; (b) The Sceptics; and (c) The
Modifiers.

The Rejectionists

❖ The rejectionists dispute the usefulness of globalization as a sufficiently precise

analytical concept.
❖ Globalization, together with an often-cited example associated with it such as
nationalism, are analytically impoverished concepts because they are too vague,
complex and ambiguous. Nationalisms, for instance, are extremely varied phenomena
and any definition will legitimize some claims and delegitimize other claims. On
another note, globalization is used broadly to refer to any form of transnational
activity from hamburger to internet.
❖ The task of globalization scholars is therefore to break the concept of globalization
into smaller, more manageable parts that can be more easily associated with empirical
processes and by extension, contains higher analytical value.
❖ This is consistent with the suggestion of abandoning all forms of general theorizing
and instead, develop middle-range approaches that seek to provide specific
explanations of particulars.
❖ For the author of the article, “the central task for scholars working in the emerging
field of globalization studies would be to identify and evaluate the ideological
manoeuvers of prominent proponents and opponents who have filled the term with
values and meanings that bolster their respective political agendas.”
 The SCEPTICS

❖ The Sceptics emphasize the limited nature of current globalizing processes. For
example, the notion that globalization is synonymous to a worldwide phenomenon of
accelerated economic ties is somewhat limiting because studies demonstrate that
economic globalization is not truly global but one that is centered on specific
geographic areas of the world. Hirst and Thompson (2009) observed that majority of
economic activities among countries in the contemporary world remain primarily
national in origin and scope. Globalization is largely a myth, so to speak.
❖ The authors convincingly demonstrate that certain political forces have used the thesis
of economic globalization to propose national economic deregulation and the
reduction of welfare programmes. The implementation of such policies stands to
benefit neo-liberal interests.
❖ Criticisms to Hirst and Thompson (2009) thesis: their claims are very Marxist in the
way that they equate globalization with purely economic undertones in effect, all
other dimensions of globalization (namely cultural, political and ideological) are
reflections of deeper economic processes.

The MODIFIERS

❖ The third and final group of globalization critics disputes the novelty of the process,
implying that the label “globalization” has often been applied in a historically
imprecise manner. Gilpin (2000) notes that the world economy is even more
integrated prior (or before World War I) as compared to the late 1990s. The
transnational economic activity that is observed to be pervasive in today’s world is
actually not a novel phenomenon. Moreover, Gilpin (2000) asserts that labor
migration is even much greater prior to World War I and that international migration
has not declined considerably after 1918.
❖ Proponents of world-systems theory also argue that modern capitalist economy has
been global since its inception five centuries ago. This implies that there is nothing
new or recent in our current representations of globalization.
❖ World systems theory is historically sensitive in its acknowledgement that cross-
regional transfers of resources, technology and culture did not only happen quite
recently. However, it suffers a similar limitation with that of Hirst and Thompson
(2009) by looking at globalization as primarily driven by economic forces on
processes.

The three camps of globalization critics force us to critically think about our use of the term by honing our
analytical skills especially with their insistence of clarifying the concept or making it more precise.
However, by focusing too narrowly on abstract issues of terminology, the globalization critics tend to
dismiss too easily the significance and extent of today’s globalizing tendencies. Finally, the representatives
of these three groups show a clear inclination to conceptualize globalization mostly along economic lines,
thereby often losing sight of its multidimensional character.
GLOBALIZATION AS AN ECONOMIC PROCESS

• Economic accounts of globalization convey the notion that the essence of the phenomenon
involves “the increasing linkage of national economies through trade, financial flows, and foreign
direct investment … by multinational firms” (Gilpin, 2000:299). Thus, expanding economic
activity is identified as both the primary aspect of globalization and the engine behind its rapid
development.
• Their strong affirmation of globalization culminates in the suggestion that a quantum change in
human affairs has taken place as the flow of large quantities of trade, investment, and
technologies across national borders has expanded from a trickle to a flood (Gilpin, 2000:19).
They proposed that a study of globalization be moved to the centre of social-scientific research.
According to this view, the central task of this research agenda should be the close examination
of the evolving structure of global economic markets and their principal institutions.
• In addition to the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s and the issue of free trade, perhaps the two
most important aspects of economic globalization relate to the changing nature of the
production process and the liberalization and internationalization of financial transactions.
Indeed, many analysts consider the emergence of a transnational financial system the most
fundamental economic feature of our time. Its key components include the deregulation of
interest rates, the removal of credit controls, and the privatization of government-owned banks
and financial institutions.
• Moreover, scholars emphasize advances in data processing and information technology that
contributed to the explosive growth of tradable financial value. New satellite systems and fibre-
optic cables provided the nervous system of internet-based technologies that further accelerate
the liberalization of financial transactions.
• While the creation of international financial markets represents a crucial aspect of economic
globalization, many scholars utilizing this approach point to another important economic
development of the last three decades that involves the changing nature of global production:
powerful transnational corporations (TNCs) with subsidiaries in several countries. Their ability to
“outsource” manufacturing jobs- that is, to cut labour costs by dispersing economic production
processes into many discrete phases carried out by low-wage workers in the global south – is
often cited as one of the hallmarks of economic globalization.

GLOBALIZATION AS POLITICAL PROCESS

• Most of the debate on political globalization involves the weighing of conflicting evidence with
regards to the fate of the modern nation-state. In particular, two questions have moved to the
top of research agenda. First, what are the political causes for the massive flows of capital, money,
and technology across territorial boundaries? Second, do these flows constitute a serious
challenge to the power of the nation-state? These questions imply that economic globalization
might be leading to the reduced control of national governments over economic policy.
• As Richard Langhorne (2001:2) puts it, “Globalization has happened because technological
advances have broken down many physical barriers to worldwide communication which used to
limit how much connected or cooperative activity of any kind could happen over long distances”.
According to even more extreme technological-determinist explanations, politics is rendered
 powerless in the face of an unstoppable and irreversible technoeconomic juggernaut that will
crush all government attempts to reintroduce restrictive policies and regulations.
• In the long run, the process of political globalization will lead to the decline of territory as a
meaningful framework for understanding political and social change. No longer functioning along
the lines of discrete territorial units, the political order of the future will be one of regional
economies linked together in an almost seamless global web that operates according to free-
market principles.
• A second group of scholars disputes the view that large-scale economic changes simply happen
to societies in the manner of natural phenomena such as earthquake and hurricanes. Instead, the
highlight the central role of politics- especially the successful mobilization of political power- in
unleashing the forces of globalization. Hence, this group of scholars argues for the continued
relevance of conventional political units, operating either in the form of modern nation-states or
global cities.
• A third group of scholars suggests that globalization is fueled by a mixture of political and
technological factors. John Gray (1998:218), for example, presents globalization as a long term,
technology-driven process whose contemporary shape has been politically determined by the
world’s most powerful nations. According to Gray, it is the ultimate objective of the neoliberal
Anglo-American initiative to engineer a global free market.
• A far less pessimistic version of a perspective that combines technology and politics to explain
globalization can be found in Castells’ (1998-8, Vol. 3: 356) series of studies over nearly two
decades focusing on the “network society”. Castells points to the rise of a new “informational
capitalism” based on information technology as the indispensable tool for the effective
implementation of processes of socioeconomic restructuring. In this context, he acknowledges
both the crisis of the nation-state as a sovereign entity and the devolution of power to regional
and local governments as well as to various supranational institutions.
• A fourth group of scholars approaches political globalization primarily from the perspective of
global governance. Representatives of this group analyse the role of various national and
multilateral responses to the fragmentation of economic and political systems and the
transnational flows permeating through national borders. Some researchers believe that political
globalization might facilitate the emergence of democratic transnational social forces emerging
from a thriving sphere of “global civil society”. Other scholars emphasize the role of global political
struggles in creating a “global revolution” that would give rise to an internationalized, rights-based
Western state conglomerate symbolically linked to global institutions. Thus, they raise the
fascinating prospect of “state formation beyond the national level”.
• Other points to consider: As cultural patterns become increasingly interlinked through
globalization, critics argue, the possibility of resistance, opposition, and violent clashes becomes
just as real as the cosmopolitan vision of mutual accommodation and tolerance of differences.

GLOBALIZATION AS A CULTURAL PROCESS

• As sociologist John Tomlinson (1999:1) puts it, “Globalization lies at the heart of modern culture;
cultural practices lie at the heart of globalization.
• There are two central questions raised by scholars of cultural globalization. First, does
globalization increase cultural homogeneity, or does it lead to greater diversity and
heterogeneity? Or, to put the matter into less academic terms, does globalization make people
 more alike or more different? And second, how does the dominant culture of consumerism impact
the natural environment?
• Tomlinson (1999:28), for example, defines cultural globalization as a “densely growing network
of complex cultural interconnections and interdependencies that characterize modern social life”.
He emphasizes that global cultural flows are directed by powerful international media
corporations that utilize new communication technologies to shape societies and identities. A
images and ideas can be more easily and rapidly transmitted from one place to another, they
profoundly impact the way people experience their everyday lives. Culture no longer remains tied
to fixed localities such as town and nation, but acquires new meanings that reflect dominant
themes emerging in a global context. This interconnectivity caused by cultural globalization
challenges parochial values and identities, because it undermines the linkages that connect
culture to fixity of location.
• A number of scholars argue that these processes have facilitated the rise of an increasingly
homogenized global culture underwritten by an Anglo-American value system. Referring to the
global diffusion of American values, consumer goods, and lifestyles as Americanization, these
authors analyse the ways in which such forms of “cultural imperialism” are overwhelming more
vulnerable cultures (e.g. McDonaldization of society). It transforms the world into a blandly
uniform market.
• Barber’s account of cultural globalization contains the important recognition that the colonizing
tendencies of McWorld provoke cultural and political resistance in the form of “jihad”- the
parochial impulse to reject and repel Western homogenization forces wherever they can be
found. Fueled by the furies of ethnonationalism and/or religious fundamentalism, jihad
represents the dark side of cultural particularism. Barber (1996:19) sees jihad as the “rapid
response to colonialism and imperialism and their economic children, capitalism and modernity”.
Guided by opposing visions of homogeneity, jihad and McWorld are dialectically interlocked in a
bitter cultural struggle for popular allegiance.
• Meanwhile, several academics offer contrary assessments that link globalization to new forms of
cultural diversity. Roland Robertson (1995: 25-44) has famously argued that global cultural flows
often reinvigorate local cultural niches. Contending that cultural globalization always takes place
in local contexts, Robertson predicts a pluralization of the world as localities produce a variety of
unique cultural responses to global forces. The result is not increasing cultural homogenization,
but “glocalization” – a complex interaction of the global and local characterized by cultural
borrowing. These interactions lead to a complex mixture of both homogenizing and
heterogenizing impulses.
• In addition to addressing the question of whether globalization leads to cultural homogeneity or
heterogeneity, scholars like Nederveen Pieterse, Hannerz and Robertson seek to expand the
concept of globalization by portraying it as a multidimensional “field”. In their view, globalization
is both a material and mental condition, constituted by complex, often contradictory interactions
of global, local and individual aspects of social life (e.g. referring to the experience of living and
acting across borders, growing sense of “placelessness” as Apparudai would term it).
 CONCLUSION

• But rather than providing a full account of every conceivable aspect of the debate, the purpose of
this chapter has been to show that there exists a variety of approaches to the subject, nut no
scholarly agreement in a single conceptual framework for the study of globalization. Moreover, it
is important to bear in mind that any overly objectivist approach to globalization is bound to
overlook the insight that all social-scientific concepts are simultaneously analytical and normative.
This dual status of concepts means that they never merely describe that to which they refer, but
are also necessarily engaged in a normative process of meaning construction (Offe, 1996: 5). It is
virtually impossible for globalization scholars to interpret the public discourse on the subject apart
from their own ideological and political framework.
• In spite of the obvious dangers inherent in this move, the inclusion of one’s beliefs and values dos
not necessarily invalidate one’s research project. As the German philosopher Hans-Georg
Gadamer (1975) has pointed out, the motivations and prejudices of the interpreter condition
every act of understanding.