Globalisation in Sociology

11 Key excerpts on "Globalisation in Sociology"

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  Globalization East and West

  • Bryan S Turner, Habibul Haque Khondker(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  In mainstream academic sociology, one of the earliest publications on the topic was W.E. Moore’s (1966) “Global sociology: the world as a singular system”. He argued that sociology was becoming a global science and that “the life of the individual anywhere is affected by events and processes everywhere” (Moore, 1966: 482). “Globalization” in this framework refers, then, to the process by which the “world becomes a single place” (Robertson, 1992), and hence the volume and depth of social inter- connectedness are greatly increased. Globalization can also be seen as the compression of social space (Giddens, 1990). Giddens’s definition of globalization was influenced by the so-called “spatial turn” which involved a revival of human geography which came to have a significant impact on the debate about globalization. In particular, there has been an important emphasis on the study of the global city. Globalization in this respect is treated as urban or city globalization in which a series of mega-cities (London, New York, Paris, Delhi, Tokyo and so on) became the principal sites of globalization – especially financial globalization. Cities such as London, Paris and Tokyo dominate the political and economic life of their own societies, and as a result the chief political officers of such global cities (or “lord mayors”) are often dominant political figures within the national landscape. The linkages and flows between these mega-cities are thought to be more important than the linkages between states. In her major publication The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Saskia Sassen (1991, 2001) has been concerned to illustrate the mobility of capital and people within the network of such sites

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  Sociology

  • Anthony Giddens, Philip W. Sutton(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  The concept of globalization is common currency in academic research, political debate, business strategy and the mass media. Yet, when the concept is invoked, it often refers to different things. For some, globalization is something like a political and economic project, pursued by elite groups in the Global North and aimed at promoting global trade to their own advantage. This is a version that provokes much anger and resistance. On the political right, globalization threatens and ultimately undermines precious national identities. On the left, globalization is often seen as a capitalist-led movement that plunders and exploits new regions, deepening inequalities and destroying good jobs in its wake (Crouch 2019a).

  For many sociologists, globalization refers to a set of largely unplanned processes, involving multidirectional flows of things, people and information across the planet (Ritzer 2009). However, although this definition highlights the increasing fluidity or liquidity of the contemporary world, many scholars also see globalization as the simple fact that individuals, companies, groups and nations are becoming ever more interdependent as part of a single global community. As we saw in the introduction to this chapter, the process of growing global interdependence has been occurring over a very long period of human history and is certainly not restricted to recent decades (Nederveen Pieterse 2004; Hopper 2007). Therborn (2011: 2) makes this point well:

  Segments of humanity have been in global, or at least transcontinental, transoceanic, contact for a long time. There were trading links between ancient Rome and India about 2,000 years ago, and between India and China. The foray of Alexander of Macedonia into Central Asia 2,300 years ago is evident from the Greeklooking Buddha statues in the British Museum. What is new is the mass of contact, and the contact of masses, mass travel and mass selfcommunication.

  As Therborn suggests, contemporary sociological debates are focused much more on the sheer pace and intensity of contemporary globalization. It is this central idea of an intensification of the process that marks this period out as different, and this is the main focus of our discussion below. The process of globalization is often portrayed as primarily an economic phenomenon, and much is made of the role of transnational corporations, whose operations stretch across national borders, influencing global production processes and the international division of labour. Others point to the electronic integration of global financial markets and the enormous volume of global capital flows, along with the unprecedented scope of world trade, involving a much broader range of goods and services than ever before. As we will see, contemporary globalization is better viewed as the coming together of political, social, cultural and economic factors.

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  Towards Inclusive Societies

  Psychological and Sociological Perspectives

  • Dharmendra Nath Tiwari, Dharmendra Nath Tiwari(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge India

    (Publisher)

  Some contemporary historians think that currently, we are passing through the fifth phase of globalisation. Some economists observe that we are passing through the third phase of globalisation at the world level. It started in the early 1980s globally. It was primarily driven by the information and communication revolution—India’s globalisation, liberalisation, and privatisation began in 1991. However, during the last four decades, there has been a heightened awareness in the public and social sciences. The process of globalisation has intensified with various technological and political developments initiated since the mid-20th century. These developments have fundamentally transformed the character of boundaries between nations and states between geographical territories. The markets across national borders are increasingly entangled with one another. This mobility of people across the world and goods produced, and ways of living or cultures in one corner of the world find their way into other countries.

  Globalisation is often associated with technological explosion, enabling connections of people, commodities, and geographically and culturally separated spaces. The interconnections between separate territories defined politically or geographically have existed for as long as 500 years. Thus, globalisation seems to permeate one and all.

  The dissolving of boundaries and the potential of an undermined nation-state status have become a central concern. What will happen to the different cultural practices, belief systems, art forms, languages, and ways of life of people of a particular nation or region within the nation-state is hotly debated. Culture is transmitted historically from one generation to the next. It is also shared across geographical boundaries. Psychological theories on culture borrowing, identity, and other psychological functions have implications for understanding the effects of globalisation. Against this backdrop, this chapter discusses globalisation’s social and psychological consequences.

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  Distributed Learning

  Social and Cultural Approaches to Practice

  • Mary R. Lea, Kathy Nicoll(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Until relatively recently, ‘the world’ was largely discussed either as an aspect of international relations or what is termed ‘world systems theory’. The former focuses on the relations between nation states, the latter on capitalist economic relations. Each has been subject to the criticism that their particular foci marginalise and exclude large and important trends in the world, in particular the cultural dimensions and the impact of information and communication technologies. In response to these limitations, different conceptions of globalisation have emerged that have stimulated debate about its nature, extent and novelty as a phenomenon, particularly in relation to the economy (Hirst and Thompson 1996a, b), but also in relation to politics and culture (Waters 1995; Edwards and Usher 2000).

  At its simplest, the notion of globalisation may be expressed as ‘the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’ (Robertson 1992: 8) or, as Waters (1995: 3) suggests, ‘a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding’. It signifies the shrinking of the world where people, services and goods are connected to each other across the globe through a variety of means and in increasingly immediate ways. Airline tickets bought in England are processed in India. CNN and McDonald's are available on a global scale. People migrate for work, leisure and increasingly as refugees. The Internet, fax and telephone put people instantly in touch with each other, even though they may be in different hemispheres. Investment decisions taken in one country may well affect workers and investors in several other countries. What in the past would have taken months to move around the globe now takes days or even seconds. The economic, political and cultural dynamics of these processes are the focus of much debate and dispute.

  Popular discussion of globalisation treats it as an entirely new phenomenon arising from the conditions of the immediate present. However, globalisation has a history and geography of its own. In this context, the contemporary interest in globalisation is the result of an intensification of certain processes and the awareness of the globe as a single environment. Robertson (1992), for example, provides one outline of the historical phases of the long, uneven and complicated process of globalisation. First, he identifies the Germinal Phase that lasted in Europe from the early fifteenth to the late eighteenth century. Although this is associated with the growth of national communities, it also embraces the spread of ideas about humanity and, perhaps more importantly, the Gregorian calendar, a step towards a global conception of time. The Incipient Phase lasted until the 1870s, once again mainly grounded in Europe, and saw the consolidation of the nation state and the development of international relations. The Take-Off Phase lasted until the mid-1920s, in which there were increasing global assumptions about what a nation state should be and how it should act. There was the implementation of ‘world time’, a sharp increase in the amount and speed of global communication, and a growth in global competitions, such as the Olympic Games. The mid-1920s to the late 1960s saw the Struggle for Hegemony Phase, particularly between the Second World War and the cold war adversaries seeking to determine the direction of the globalising processes in line with their own ideologies. The Holocaust and atom bomb provided defining perspectives on the prospects for humanity within this period. The current phase since the late 1960s is what Robertson (1992) terms the Uncertainty Phase, in which global consciousness has become heightened, with international systems more fluid, the prospects for humanity more fraught in the light of environmental and other risks, and with the increase in global communications and the consolidation of the global media. Alongside and in response to trends towards global integration, white, ‘western’ male assumptions that underlie dominant conceptions of humanity and society have been called into question by considerations of gender, sexual, ethnic and racial differences, the increased multiculturalism of societies and notions of the hybridity of cultures.

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  From Walmart to Al Qaeda

  An Interdisciplinary Approach to Globalization

  • David Murillo(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3Economic globalization

  3.1 A sociological approach to economics: definitions and concepts

  If there is one single issue that usually predominates in the debate on globalization it is that of the economy. Its central role is due to the fact that it is considered to be the main driving force of change and the foundation on which lie the whole series of technological, cultural and political changes that help to describe the phenomenon of globalization. This said, we need to bear in mind that the present economic analysis of globalization in recent decades has developed characteristics of its own, different from those of previous decades, that force us to analyse it from two angles: first that of the productive economy, and then that of finance, which we will address in the next chapter. In the following pages we aim to arrive at an understanding of the specific nature of economic globalization, lending special attention to its most recent historical development: its phases and the elements that characterize it. We will then go on to explore its consequences from the viewpoint of the redistribution of political and economic power, particularly with regard to large corporations and states. Lastly, we will examine its impacts and reactions to it on a global scale, and tackle one of the key discussions at present: its impact on planetary inequality.

  The approach that interests us, however, is not that taken by economists but for the most part that which is defended by economic sociology. The chief difference between these two disciplines lies in the methodology used and the importance of the role of institutions in accounting for a particular economic phenomenon.1 Economics tends to proceed deductively , on the basis of premises that explain human behaviour. In neoclassical economics, currently predominant in universities, these premises are erected around an abstraction, the economic anthropology of Homo economicus , according to which, broadly speaking, all individuals are selfish, materialistic, individualistic, rational and out to maximize our preferences in a market (of goods and services) in which there are suppliers and demanders. This abstraction may be accompanied by others, such as the notion of perfectly competitive markets or the efficient market hypothesis. We will discuss this later on, but not yet. All we are interested in here is to point out the deductive approach of economics and alongside this the disdain this discipline shows for the effects of theories on the world around us. In the words of Nobel economics prize laureate Milton Friedman, the interest of a theory lies not in the goodness or veracity of its assumptions but in its ability to predict the outcome of a particular action.2

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  Relational Sociology

  A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences

  • Pierpaolo Donati(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  To characterize globalization in terms of uncertainty, risk and liquidity, as is common to Bauman (1998), Beck (1998) and Giddens (1999), does not significantly extend our knowledge because every epochal crisis has always been accompanied by such ‘symptoms’. Although these features are particularly pronounced today and are structurally inherent in the emerging society, this does not alter the fact that they are merely symptomatic.

  Four main sociological interpretations of globalization can currently be identified, but their common denominator is more important than their differences: (i) globalization as the last phase of liberal capitalism (e.g. Wallerstein 1991); (ii) globalization as world interdependence (note the preference for the term mondialisation in the French speaking world); (iii) globalization as standardization of the Mind, derived from the concept of the ‘general intellect’ formulated by Marx in his Grundrisse , or, more simply, as cultural homogenization; (iv) globalization as a step towards a single ‘world social system’ (as accentuated by Luhmann). However, in all these cases, globalization is considered to be the fruit of modernity’s realization. For this reason, none are able to break free from a vision of the past that prevents them from taking the qualitative epistemological leap now required.

  In order to make that leap and thus to take into account the morphogenetic character of globalization and its transformations, sociology has to be able to formulate a new general theory (‘relational’ in kind) that enables us to distinguish one form of society from another. In particular, it should be able to specify in what respects ‘global society’ differs from all other forms of society – both past and potential ones.

  The call for a relational sociological theory emerges from within this framework. Its aim is to avoid reductionism and, on the other hand, to overcome the aporias and difficulties inherent in postmodern theories, especially their imprisonment in what will later be discussed as the complex of ‘lib/lab’ thinking. The goal of a relational theory is to show that society is made up of social relations in respect to which human beings are both immanent and transcendent. So, society is still made by human beings, but increasingly it does not consist of them, since it is made up more and more of social relations created by human beings. Such an approach makes it possible to revitalize the human dimension of doing sociology and, in parallel, of making society, despite the apparent de-humanization of contemporary social life (Donati 2007).

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  International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology

  • Jens Beckert, Milan Zafirovski, Jens Beckert, Milan Zafirovski(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  An appropriate point of departure is to recognize that globalization is a process fuelled by, and resulting in, increasing flows of goods, services, money, people, information and culture across the world that do not observe national borders or other kinds of barriers (Held et al. 1999: 16). Social scientists such as Anthony Giddens, David Harvey and Roland Robertson have specifically pointed out three important dimensions of globalization (Guillén 2001a). First, it entails a ‘decoupling’ between space and time, i.e. a ‘compression’ or ‘shrinking’ of the world. Second, it produces both more interdependence, and perhaps coordination, between or among actors, organizations and aggregate entities situated in hitherto unrelated parts of the world. And third, it enhances our consciousness of the world as one big place, thus producing increasing mutual awareness. I propose to combine these dimensions and define globalization as a process of intensified exchange leading to greater interdependence and mutual awareness among economic, political and social units in the world, and among actors in general (Guillén 2001a; Held et al. 1999: 429–31; Waters 1995: 63). Aside from a process making us more aware of each other, globalization is an ideology, one with multiple meanings and lineages. Sometimes it appears loosely associated with neo-liberalism and with technocratic solutions to economic development and market-oriented reforms (Evans 1997). The term also appears linked to cross-border advocacy networks and organizations defending human rights, the environment, women' rights or world peace (Keck and Sikkink 1998). The environmental movement, in particular, has raised the banner of globalism in its struggle for a clean planet (Held et al. 1999: 376–413. Thus, globalization is often constructed as an impersonal and inevitable force in order to justify certain policies or behaviours, however praiseworthy some of them might be

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  Living the Global City

  Globalization as Local Process

  • John Eade(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

  Community, culture and milieu*

  Martin Albrow, John Eade, Jörg Dürrschmidt and Neil Washbourne

  INTRODUCTION

  It is only in the last decade that a number of related processes which combine to increase the interconnectedness of social life at the world level have come to be known as globalization. But major claims have already been made for the social impact and theoretical significance of the phenomenon. For Robertson its discussion ‘touches just about every aspect of academic disciplines’ (1992:9). For Giddens the term ‘must have a key position in the lexicon of the social sciences’ (1990:52). Robertson construes the concept as referring ‘both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’ (1992:8). Giddens defines it as ‘the intensification of worldwide social relations’ (1990:64). Both agree that its consequence must be a refocusing of sociological work.

  That refocusing, if we are to follow the implications of Giddens’ and Robertson’s accounts, must already have been under way for some time. For both of them stress the essentially reflexive nature of globalization processes, whereby the interaction of the local and global is transformative of social relations. In Robertson’s account the global field involves the multiple relativization of phenomena such as societies, selves and citizenship; in Giddens’ account the dialectic of global and local is conducted through new trustgenerating abstract systems.

  In each case then old certainties give way to a dynamized set of relations in which reference points meaningful for people in their everyday lives have constantly to be reconstituted. Giddens’ and Robertson’s accounts refer to changes in the social world which must put established sociological conceptualizations under strain. The implication is that sociologists need new ways of talking and writing about the world because it has changed, but that these will also be evidenced in that world since they are part of its self-reflexive nature. Concepts which reflected an older order, such as society, class, state, will consequently all bear the strain. Giddens notes the difficulty of operating with society as equated with the nation-state (1990:64). Robertson sees globalization as stimulating a search for fundamentals which underpin these shifting phenomena (1992:174–7).

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  Sociology

  An Introductory Textbook and Reader

  • Daniel Nehring, Ken Plummer(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Not so much a phenomenon ‘out there’, globalization is rather internal to the way we go about making choices and performing activities in daily life. Globalization is not merely constraint, a kind of brake, on personal autonomy, though undoubtedly it sometimes feels like this. For Giddens, the global – which penetrates to the core of lifestyle options – is inextricably bound up with the local, the way we live now.

  Consider

  1. How do Elliott and Lemert characterise the relationship between individualisation and globalisation? How does Larry’s story illustrate this relationship?
  2. How would you define individualisation? Use the reading and the preceding introduction to support your arguments.
  3. How relevant is the idea of individualisation to the society you live in? Why?
  4. Now return to sections 5.10 and 5.11. How may new forms of mobility and transformations in the world of work contribute to explaining the individualisation of modern societies?

  5.12 Conclusion

  This chapter has explored contemporary patterns of social change from a relatively wide range of perspectives. Each of these perspectives represents a particular lens or standpoint from which you could begin to think about the nature of contemporary social life and the shape of things to come. Given the particularity of these standpoints, it is also important to emphasise that each of them can only give you a somewhat partial and incomplete image of the social world. Social change tends to proceed in a nonlinear manner. This means that processes of global change might best be understood as general tendencies that manifest themselves in very specific ways in different places and that may entail a variety of consequences.

  The inexorable global spread of capitalism serves well to illustrate this point. It is uncontroversial to argue that capitalist forms of social, economic and cultural life are pervasive around the world today. There is, however, less agreement upon the nature and consequences of capitalism’s global dominance. In line with the theories of globalisation outlined in section 5.2, some would argue that capitalism’s spread has gone hand in hand with a trend towards the homogenisation or, often, Americanisation, of social life. Other scholars emphasise that capitalism has been moulded to suit a variety of locally specific beliefs and practices. In spite of these differences, even many supporters of the homogenisation thesis acknowledge a notable degree of variability in globalisation’s manifestations and consequences.

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  New Horizons in Sociological Theory and Research

  The Frontiers of Sociology at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century

  • Luigi Tomasi(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2   Cambodia provides the clearest example for Eisenstadt’s thesis. The country’s national collective identity erased by the Poi Pot regime and then by the Vietnamese invasion is now being laboriously reconstructed.

  3   Therborn offers various definitions of global sociology in his essay. The most incisive of them appears on p. 50 : ‘A global sociology means a sociology that takes globality and human social life on the planet Earth as serious issues’.

  4   I refer to the meeting between the presidents of the two Koreas, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong II, at Pyongyang on 13 June 2000 and to the situation of severe shortages in the North, which resembles that of the Soviet empire immediately prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

  5   On 21 September 1993, the Cambodia constitutional assembly adopted the Constitution promulgated by the head of state three days later. Artide 4 runs as follows in the French translation: ‘La devise du Royaume est: La Nation, la Religion, la Roi\

  6   The reference is to my study based on interviews with young people aged 18-30.

  7   Innumerable attempts have been made to redefine or rethink development. None of them has produced satisfactory results.

  8   Translated from the Italian.

  9   Ibid.

  10  By this I mean that interest waned in sociology of religion à la

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  Theories of Globalization

  • Barrie Axford(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  Despite differences, all the preceding accounts work with the idea that there is, or can be, a world society. In doing so they either endorse a model of society yet to be met outside an ideal-typical version of the territorial state and the bounded society, or prefer definitions that depart from the conventional wisdom about society formation found in classical sociological theory. The question for globalization scholars is whether the social ontology of the global can be grasped through use of a concept so patently tied to national indicators. This is not a trivial question, because it challenges the ability of much social theory to comprehend the global. Its importance lies in highlighting the acute question for globalization theory: is a global social system or (world) society possible, and what would it hold together?

  Mathias Albert draws on systems theory to address precisely this question (2007). His argument is that certain brands of social theory – theories of society – are applicable to the global condition, particularly the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann (1981; 1983; 1997). The core of his argument pace Luhmann is that while it is possible to conceive of a world society, its existence and survival are not predicated on the same attributes of stability, consensus and cultural wholeness found in functionalist treatments of social order and seen in models of state and nation-building. Instead the global system is characterized as ‘differentiated and polycentric’ (Jessop, 1990, 320).

  Classical theories of society stress the importance of normative integration to explain why societies cohere despite their heterogeneity. But is this dynamic actually available beyond the nation-state, where the modal social form either is network based or comprises only sporadic outbursts of solidarity expressed through world public opinion on issues of pressing concern? Some research on the ethnography of social networks in general and transnational networks in particular suggests that they may well be contexts in which strong and enduring identities can be formed (Axford, 2006; 2007a; Keck and Sikkink, 1998). Moreover, the idea of attentive, if not enduring, global publics is increasingly canvassed in literature on global civil society and cosmopolitanism (Thomas, 2009; Fossum and Schlesinger, 2007; Ruggie, 2005; Keane, 2003; Castells,

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