What is Globalization?

First of all before I start with the topic I would like to appologize from my readers for not updating my blog recently.Last 1,5 month was very busy and important for me as I needed to pass some exams in order to become a MA student,which I became finally :).So I couldnt work properly on my blog.Unfortunatelly I cant update very often now my blog but I will do my best so you can enjoy your reading and get some new and interesting information.Hope you will understand me. :)

I guess many of you heard this term more than once.But how many of you exactly know what is globalization and what place it takes in our life.As now I am more involved in all these topics as a MA student of interntional relations and diplomacy I would like to put some information about globalization.
Here is some info that interpret us the meaning of globalization.

Introduction

Globalization - the 'big idea' of the late twentieth century - lacks precise definition. More than this, it is in danger of becoming, if it has not already become, the cliché of our times.

Nonetheless, the term globalization captures elements of a widespread perception that there is a broadening, deepening and speeding up of world-wide interconnectedness in all aspects of life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the environmental. At issue appears to be 'a global shift'; that is, a world being moulded, by economic and technological forces, into a shared economic and political arena.

Behind the rhetoric of globalization - rhetoric found in public as well as academic debate - lie three broad accounts of the nature and meaning of globalization today, referred to here as the hyperglobalist, the sceptical, and the transformationalist views.

- Hyperglobalists argue that we live in an increasingly global world in which states are being subject to massive economic and political processes of change. These are eroding and fragmenting nation-states and diminishing the power of politicians. In these circumstances, states are increasingly the 'decision- takers' and not the 'decision-makers'.

- The sceptics strongly resist this view and believe that contemporary global circumstances are not unprecedented. In their account, while there has been an intensification of international and social activity in recent times, this has reinforced and enhanced state powers in many domains.

- The transformationalists argue that globalization is creating new economic, political and social circumstances which, however unevenly, are serving to transform state powers and the context in which states operate. They do not predict the outcome - indeed, they believe it is uncertain - but argue that politics is no longer, and can no longer simply be, based on nation-states.

What is to be made of these different positions? Are we, or are we not, on the edge of a global shift with massive political, economic and cultural implications?

What is Globalization?

- Globalization can usefully be conceived as a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions, generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction and power.

- It is characterized by four types of change:

1- First, it involves a stretching of social, political and economic activities across political frontiers, regions and continents.
2- Second, it suggests the intensification, or the growing magnitude, of interconnectedness and flows of trade, investment, finance, migration, culture, etc.
3- Third, the growing extensity and intensity of global interconnectedness can be linked to a speeding up of global interactions and processes, as the evolution of world-wide systems of transport and communication increases the velocity of the diffusion of ideas, goods, information, capital, and people.
4- Fourth, the growing extensity, intensity and velocity of global interactions can be associated with their deepening impact such that the effects of distant events can be highly significant elsewhere and even the most local developments may come to have enormous global consequences. In this sense, the boundaries between domestic matters and global affairs can become increasingly blurred.

In sum, globalization can be thought of as the widening, intensifying, speeding up, and growing impact of world-wide interconnectedness. By conceiving of globalization in this way, it becomes possible to map empirically patterns of world-wide links and relations across all key domains of human activity, from the military to the cultural.

- From the pre-modern, through to the early modern (1500-1800), modern (19th to early 20th century), to the contemporary period, distinctive patterns of globalization can be identified in respect of their different systemic and organizational features - uneven as they often are. These patterns constitute distinctive historical forms of globalization. By comparing and contrasting these changing historical forms, it is possible to identify more precisely what is novel about the present epoch.

- Accordingly, to advance an account of globalization it is necessary to turn from a general concern with its conceptualization to an examination of the key domains of activity and interaction in and through which global processes evolve.

This is just the part of it.Later on I will put some more information and some facts about what is going on in our world.I guess each of us should know about it as it is effecting our life directly.