History of Globalization
Introduction
Globalization is viewed as an ongoing process. It is very difficult to determine the
exact period or time when this process started. There are many people who
would like to trace the process from the dawn of civilization. Many of them
are not over-enthusiastic. 'They find origins of globalization in the expansion of
imperialism in Asia and Africa by the European Powers notably the Great Britain,
the empire of which was so huge that the sun never used to set in the empire.
There are still many people who argue that globalization came about with the
revolution in transport and com~nunication technology and they find its period in
the middle of either 19th century or 20th century.Globalization is a term that has been used to explain the integration of the world, in multiple ways – economic, political, cultural, technological, and geographic. Though globalization cannot and must not be limited to mean economic integration of the world, the term globalization has been, over the years, seen to be synonymous with economic globalization. Additionally, as we shall see, globalization must not be seen as the monopoly of Europe and the West, since in the past centuries, influences from the East have also made their way Westwards. Today, the revolution in electronic and communication technology has greatly expanded the reach of globalization.
Meaning of Globalization
The term ‘global village’ is a jargon apt for usage in the global era that we live in. Coined by Marshall McLuhan (1962), it notes the integration of people all over the world through the speedy passing of information, via the medium of electronic technology. This module will look at the many definitions of globalisation in the coming paragraphs. However, its main focus will be on the history of globalization, specifically economic globalisation, given its place in the globalization discourse.
Globalisation in its simplest present-day definition is the movement of people, capital and goods. It is also seen as a process that has increased the integration and inter-connectedness of countries and people around the world. Some academics consider globalisation to be as old as primitive man. For, it is the migration of the primitive man across continents that established human settlements in different parts of the world. There is obviously a significant difference between the migration of primitive man, as a characteristic of globalisation, and the internationally recognized aspect of macro-economic policy changes, that have made the world a more interconnected place and brought about multiple forms of integration.
Historical Background of Globalization
Frank and Gills (1992) suggests that the history of the world system – they denote the term without the hyphen, unlike Wallerstein’s denotation of the term - dates back to five thousand years and that the rise of Europe and the West are but recent and ‘passing’ phenomena in the history of the world-system. Moreover, they argue that some of the characteristics which were typical of the modern world-system, actually existed much before its officially recognised period of emergence, as given by Emmanuel Wallerstein (1974).
For example, unlike Wallerstein, Samir Amin (1975) and the dependency theorists, for Frank and Gills, capital accumulation, which is characteristic of the modern world system, has existed for many thousand years before the world-systems analysis’s attribution of the Middle Ages as its origin.
Wallerstein calls previous systems as ‘world empires’ and Amin calls them ‘tributaries’ where ‘political and ideological’ rather than economic unity – which is characteristic of the world-system - was predominant.
Moreover, the dependency theorists’ emphasis on the coreperiphery angle in the modern world system, in which surplus is transferred from the periphery regions to the core regions, is something that Frank and Gills note could have existed in world systems before the rise of the modern world system. According to Frank and Gills, while Wallerstein and others consider the modern world system to be cyclical, in that core-periphery relationships keep changing and so do world system hegemonies and rivalries, they believe that such cycles existed long before the academically recognised origin of the modern world system.
Though Wallerstein’s description of the origin of globalisation through his explanation of the modern world-system is considered Eurocentric and is not without its criticisms, it is acknowledged in academic circles as a good source to understand the origins of modern-day globalisation, as we know it. Wallerstein (1974) compares the emergence of the modern world-system to previous watersheds in ‘world social science’ such as the emergence of the Neolithic Man and the transformation from the Middle Ages to the Modern World. He calls these systems structures and sees changes in them as being qualitative in nature and resulting in a world vastly different from the one in the past. According to Wallerstein, there are there are four periods that any history of globalisation should concern itself with. These are: 1450-1640 when the modern world-system first originated and was still confined to Europe; 1640-1815, when the modern world-system was strengthened by the activities of the system; 1815-1917, when industrial revolution and modern technology converted the ‘world-economy into a global enterprise’ and 1917 -1970s, when the capitalist world-economy was strengthened and the world began to witness the revolutionary urges to overthrow the capitalist world system.
You can also read: What is Globalization and its meaning
.png)
Comments