Aims and Objectives

For the last decade, "globalization" has been one of the most frequently used words not
only in academe, but also in media and our everyday conversations. In this context,
social, political, and economic aspects of globalization have been frequently discussed in
many disciplines of social science, such as political science, sociology, and economics.
However, there has been lack of attention given to the geographical and spatial aspects of
globalization. With this problem orientation, this module aims to provide students with an
in-depth understanding of the social, political, and economic changes at various
geographical scales with respect to globalization.

More specifically, this module focuses on developing understandings of:

1. the complex forces driving globalization and the related urban and regional
changes
2. the relationship between the processes of globalization and regionalization
3. the ways in which the forms of urban and regional governance have been changed
in the context of globalization
4. the impacts of globalization on urban and regional development

What is globalization? (18 January 2002)

What is Globalization?

- Globalization
: "the social, political, and economic changes at various geographical scales enhanced by
the growing interconnections between all parts of the world".

- 3 dimensions of globalization
1) economic, 2) cultural, and 3) political

Economic Globalization

1. Global Production

- internationalization vs. globalization

- Internationalization processes
: involve the simple extension of economic activities across national
boundaries.
: International trade developed primarily as an exchange of raw materials
and foodstuffs with products manufactured and finished in single national
economies
 : low levels of functional integration of economic activities across national
boundaries

- Globalization processes
: qualitatively different from internationalization processes.
: not merely the geographical extension of economic activity across
national boundaries, but also the functional integration of such
internationally dispersed activities.
: based on "new international division of labor" and "global production"
: Two important consequences of globalization
1) the increasing significance of TNCs (Trans-national Corporations)
2) the emergence of NIEs (Newly Industrialized Economies)

2. Global Markets

- Rapid increase in the volumes of international trade

- Increasing significance of some Asian countries in international trade

: due to the development of global production

3. Global Finance

- the globalization of finance

: the increasing freedom of movement, transfer, and tradability of money
and finance capital across the globe

- increasing volumes of direct investment & portfolio investment crossing

national boundaries

4. Limits to economic globalization

- "the end of geography"; "the death of distance"

: dramatic developments in the technologies of transport and
communication => "time-space compression" => increasing capital
mobility => capital and economic activities are no longer tied to ‘place’

- Some counter-arguments to these discourses

1) capital and firms are not always footloose / some remain firmly in
place.
2) the ‘global’ economy encompasses only a few selected countries.

Cultural Globalization

1. deterritorialization of culture

- increasing disconnection between original identity and culture and traditional location
2. Cultural homogenization

- The growth of cultural flows has increased sameness between distant

places.
- "cultural imperialism" or "Americanization".

3. Limits to cultural globalization

- the strong presence of indigenous, traditional cultural traits through the

world has mad it difficult to claim that the world has become culturally
unified.

4. "Reterritorialization" of culture

- Globalization is not a one-way process, but the global is adapted to

differentiated local conditions.

Political Globalization

1. Economic and cultural globalization => increasing significance of TNCs & decreasing
significance of nation state in controlling transactions crossing borders

: "the End of State" thesis – the state is not important any more as an entity
of economic regulation, political power, and cultural formation.

2. Counter-arguments to the "globalized end-state" discourses

- the state’s position still remains important because of its various roles in
the economy.
- the state as a generic form of governance is still very important, but the
forms of the
governance have been changed.

3. entrepreneurial state

4. increasing significance of international organizations (e.g. IMF, the World Bank, the
WTO, EU, ASEAN…)

Politics of Globalization

1. Dominance of a neo-liberal version of globalization discourse

- Globalization = imposing financial liberalization, lifting barriers to

international trade and capital movement, decreasing state intervention in
economic activities ….
- increasing resistance against this neo-liberal version of globalization
2. Uneven nature of globalization

- increasing gap between the rich and the poor & between the developed
countries and the developing countries

Lecture 3. Globalization Debate I: Continuity or Change?; Real or Imagined? (25

Janauary 2002)

1. The Hyperglobalist Thesis

- Globalization tendencies are seen as being all-encompassing, all

powerful, and everywhere.

- Privileging an economic logic: technological development in transport

and communication => hyper-mobility of capital => increasing
significance of market forces & the emergence of a single global market
=> a ‘denationalization’ of economies => decreasing significance of the
national government as an entity of regulating economic activities and
transactions

- The demise of the nation-state

: globalized economy => national governments are increasingly unable to
control and regulation economic activities and transactions

- Economic globalization is generating a new pattern of winners and losers

in the global economy.

- Decreasing significance of territoriality and nationality in economic,

social, cultural, and political
activities
1) TNCs – truly global firms
2) Emergence of a new global (and transnational) culture
3) An emerging global civilization (‘global civil society’)

2. The Skeptics

- Comtemporary levels of economic interdependence is nothing new

: not globalization, but only heightened levels of internationalization

- Economic activity is undergoing a significant "regionalization" (not

globalization)
: centered on three regional trading blocs (Europe, Asia-Pacific and North
America)

- The enduring power of national governments to regulate international

economic activity
 - Existing patterns of stratification (inequalities) have not changed
: continuing North-South inequalities

- Myth of transnationalism
1) the myth of the "global corporations"
2) the myth of a global culture
3) No sign of emerging ‘global civilizatioin’ / but the clash of civilizations

3. The Transformationalists

- Both the hyperglobalists and the skeptics are "ideal type" approaches
: ideal forms of globalization – 1) the infinite mobility of capital, 2) the
prevalence of unregulated market forces, 3) the attainment of absolute
power by TNCs, 4) the demise of the nation-state, 5) homogenezation in
social, political, and economic conditions across the globe
: But, globalization is much more complicated and dynamic processes than
these ideals forms.

- Admitting that globalization is a central driving force behind the rapid

social, political and economic changes that are reshaping modern societies
and world order
: contemporary processes of globalization are historically unprecedented
: globalization is a powerful transformative force

- But, the direction of this transformation remains "UNCERTAIN"

1) globalization is an essentially contingent historical process
2) globalization processes are intrinsically uneven and heterogeneous
rather than homogeneous (denying the notion of a single global society)
3) Globalization is not about one scale becoming more important than the
rest, but multi-scalar processes

- Reconstruction of the nation-state (not the end of the nation-state)

1) globalization is associated with a qualitative reorganization of the
structural capacities and strategic emphases of the nation-states
2) the reconstruction of the nation-state is juxtaposed with the increasing
power of international governance
3) emergence of a new ‘sovereignty regime’: sovereignty today is ‘less as
a territorially defined barrier than a bargaining resource for a politics
characterized by complex transnational networks’

- "Globally regionalized" economic activities (not a global economy)

: TNCs are not truly global / globally networked, but locally responsive
- Increasing problems of territorial boundaries
: due to increasing trans-border migration and economic transactions
 - New patterns of global stratification
: in this new globalizing era, new hierarchies cut across and penetrate
national boundaries

IN SUM,

* Globalization is a complex of processes, not an end-state or a new order.

* Globalization is a contradictory process, not an unbending force or

unidirectional trend.
* Globalization will proceed hand in hand with uneven spatial
development.
* Globalization processes do not float in the air, but are realized in specific
institutionally, historically, and geographically specific sites.
* Globalization implies qualitative as well as quantitative change, in the
sense that there are changes in the relationships between scales, social
structures and agents.
* Globalization involves the complex diffusion, rearcitulation and
reconstitution of power relationships, not simply a zero-sum redistribution
among nation-states and TNCs.