The Sociology of Globalization, Second Edition

Luke Martell, The Sociology of Globalization, Second edition, 2017 Introduction: Concepts of Globalization There have been many trends in sociology in recent decades. These have varied from country to country. One was a concern with class and social mobility from the 1950s onwards, in part evident in debates between Marxists and Weberians. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminists argued that such debates had marginalized another form of social division, gender inequalities. Feminism grew in influence, itself being criticized for failing to appreciate other divisions, for instance ethnic inequalities, identified by those with postcolonial perspectives. In the 1980s, this concern with differences was highlighted in postmodern ideas, and the power of knowledge was analysed by theorists such as Michel Foucault. In the 1980s and 1990s, a more homogenizing idea came to the fore, globalization. This also went on to stress local difference and plurality. The themes of globalization were not new, but the word and the popularity of the idea really came to the fore in the 1980s (an early mention is in Modelski 1972). Why did globalization become a popular idea? One reason is the rise of global communications, especially the Internet, which made people feel that connections across the world were flowing more strongly and speedily, as well as becoming more democratic. With the end of the cold war, it seemed that the bipolar world had become unified, whether through cultural homogenization or the spread of capitalism. People became increasingly conscious of global problems, such as climate change. Economic interdependency and instability were more visible. Money flowed more freely and national economies went into recession together in the 1970s and again thirty years later. From the 1970s onwards, one of the building blocks of the national era, the nationstate, seemed to be under threat. Welfare states became cumbersome and expensive, and economic liberals like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher led the world in rolling them back. The first half of this introduction will look at the sociology of globalization and themes of the book. The second half will discuss the concept of globalization. The sociology of globalization Globalization may appear a macro phenomenon and distant, unlike micro issues that have more of an impact on daily life. Yet large-scale global processes of economic restructuring and international political power have a big impact on our individual lives. The global economy and distribution of wealth affect, for example, our chances of employment, alongside our material circumstances generally. Identity and cultural experience are forged out of global inputs, from media to music, migration and food. Which side you live on in the constellation of global political powers has significant consequences for your life chances. For some, phenomena such as culture and people movements are what sociologists should be concerned about. Culture is sociological and has social effects, whereas economic and political issues are the preserve of other disciplines or maybe just less interesting. Culture is both important and interesting, as we shall see in this book. But so are economics and politics. Culture is affected by economic and political factors. Economic and political factors that seem distant from our lives have a large impact – for instance, mergers and diversification in the media industry and government deregulation impact on our cultural experiences as consumers. The fact that I live in a rich, developed country, one of the core powers in the world, and relatively democratic, peaceful, and free, has a great effect on my life compared to what it would be like if I lived in a poorer, developing country, or one with less democracy and freedom, or more conflict and violence. A large proportion of the world’s population lives in places with some or all of these problems. That I can watch cable television or access the Internet, what are cultural experiences, is not only based in economic and political factors, but also pales into insignificance next to economic and political advantages, which give me a privileged everyday experience. Culture is important, it interests us and we are conscious of it. But economics and politics matter on a micro, individual and daily basis in ways that we often don’t think about. Some sociologists think the study of politics and economics is not really sociology. It is the territory of political scientists and economists. But this lacks a sense of an interdisciplinary role for sociology. Furthermore, sociology is the study of social structures, relations and processes, of society. Society includes the political and economic dimensions that affect aspects like culture and migration. This book takes politics and economics seriously, as an important part of sociology, without which globalization cannot be understood. You can’t understand globalization without looking at its economic and political dimensions. And to analyze cultural and social spheres in isolation would be to overlook the economic and political power, inequality and conflict that affect them, making cultural globalization seem more equal and benign than it really is. Some sociologists separate their studies of cultural globalization from their studies of political-economic relations. Consequently, their awareness of conflict, inequality and power in politics and economics becomes separated from the more benign, equal and cosmopolitan picture they have of culture (for instance, see Beck 2000, 2006, and Nederveen Pieterse 2004a, 2004b. For a sociology of globalization that incorporates political economy and so power, inequality and conflict, see Bourdieu 1998a, 1999, 2003a). To take an interdisciplinary perspective is distinctively sociological. Sociology has, from its founding days, drawn on economic and political perspectives and dealt with issues such as capitalism, ownership, the division of labour, economic class and the role of the nation-state. Consequently, sociology is well equipped to deal with modernity, capitalism and the state, some of the main institutions in globalization. Some of the core themes of sociology are at the heart of this book power, inequality and social divisions and inequalities such as class and gender. Such issues have always been central to the sociological perspective and sociology has played a key role in bringing them to the fore across the social sciences and in public life. So this book looks at some important conventionally sociological topics – migration and the movement of people, the media, culture and social movements – but it also identifies inequality and power as distinctively sociological preoccupations to look out for in globalization. Furthermore it argues that the economy and politics, sometimes left out by some sociologists, are sociological. They are part of society and they affect society, social relations and social structures. To narrow-mindedly rule such things out from being the proper concern of sociology omits major factors affecting social life, and especially behind power, inequality and conflict, leaving sociology with a perspective that turns away from the realities of society, especially its harsher realities. There is a danger of fetishizing the new in recent perspectives on globalization. Old ways of sociology – such as Marxist economic determinism, or perspectives that have a ‘realist’ view of the state (as an actor that pursues its interests in competition with others) – are viewed by some as outmoded. Cosmopolitanism is seen as more appropriate to a new global era requiring new perspectives to fit with a world in which cultures intermingle, where foci on the nation-state or capitalist economic power are too methodologically nationalist or economically determinist, where societies are no longer neatly bounded within national borders, and global identities such as human rights and hybridity are taking over (for instance, see Beck 2006; Urry 2000). There are problems with this advocacy of a cosmopolitan sociology: (a) The old sociology was quite international in its outlook (Turner 2006). Cosmopolitan sociologists overstate the novelty of contemporary cosmopolitan views. (b) Rejecting classical sociology as too economistic and statist undermines an understanding of the role of economic power and the state in globalization, leading to a picture of culture and social relations which does not show how they are unequal and power-laden because of economic and political structures. (c) Economic and political power are omitted in a way that is theoretically elegant and pleasing, but is not empirical enough. The argument is made mainly theoretically in the face of empirical evidence that shows the role of capitalist and state power. (d) One empirical bias in cosmopolitanism is the focus of its advocates on their own parts of the world, especially Europe and North America, and to a lesser extent other fast growing societies, with little attention paid to large parts of the world afflicted by poverty and war. The former fit the cosmopolitan story better than the latter, although even some of the former are distinctly uncosmopolitan when it comes to things like immigration restrictions and economic protectionism. (e) Cosmopolitanism is put forward as a fresh perspective in tune with the new global and intermixed world. There is a fetishization of the new over the old such that anything that is old is labelled outmoded, unsophisticated or out of date even if empirical evidence shows it has a stronger hold on explaining things. This categorization of something as old and outmoded is used as a way of dismissing it in place of a convincing critique of its theoretical cogency or, more importantly, empirical evidence. The important thing is not whether an argument is new or old but which is the right argument. (f) As well as a lack of emphasis on empirical evidence there is contradiction. Some of those who reject the old approaches combine their new cosmopolitan arguments with other arguments that show the role of state and capitalist power. (Some of these points are developed more in Martell 2008, 2009, and in this book). Themes of the book There are number of themes running through this book. 1 Economic bases of globalization As mentioned, some sociological studies of globalization have focused on culture and some have argued for a shift away from economic determinism. Culture has heavily shaped globalization, and globalization has a lot to do with the transnationalization and intermingling of cultures and local cultural responses to global cultures. The interaction between globalization and culture and identities is exciting, important and full of possibilities, and is discussed in this book. But it is difficult to see many areas of globalization where lying behind them are not also economic structures that affect the equality or power relations with which globalization is produced or received, or economic incentives to do with making money. My argument is not just about the economics behind globalization, but capitalist economics, the pursuit of profit by private owners. Other factors tailor and shape globalization and the economics of profit is not the only causal factor or one that goes in a simple unlinear direction unaffected by other forces. But it is very often a significant driving force. 2 Globalization as historical/modern Globalization is historical. It started long before the recent years of information technology, the end of the cold war or even the end of the Second World War. It has its bases earlier, in the development of capitalism and industrialism, and in the institutions, technologies and incentives these systems brought along. These provided the biggest qualitative leap in globalization and are behind many forms of globalization today. They were not just the key starting point but also the basis today for current forms. At the same time it is less plausible that globalization, or the bases for current globalization, started before this. While Europe and the West were still relatively backward, other more sophisticated parts of the world were practising long-distance trade, religion and expansion but these were not truly globalization. 3 Sceptical perspectives on globalization Sociology is historically a critical discipline, and a critical but openminded approach is healthy and in part what academic research should be about. Applied to globalization this leads to some sceptical conclusions, including doubts about whether what is called globalization really is that, or whether international structures and processes in the world match up to the criteria for globalization. What many people describe when they talk about globalization is happening. But it’s not clear that it is globalization. Describing it as such gives it a meaning that is misleading as to its true character. The sceptical view is linked to another theme of this book. Globalization is structured by power, inequality and conflict. Some people play a greater role in globalization than others, and some are more integrated and others excluded. So, while there may be globalizing processes, they are sometimes not global because some people are not as influential or included as others. Structures and processes described as globalization are significant, so the study of these is important. But, as a result of the unevenness of inclusion, and because of power, inequality and conflict, these are not always ‘global’. It’s important to recognize the significance of international processes but also to not assume they are necessarily globalization. 4 Power, inequality and conflict Many analyses of globalization have been critical and see it as a problematic process – to take a couple of examples, neoliberalism imposed on parts of the world by the West leading to negative consequences, or American imperialism played out through the media, exploitative multinational corporations or military power. Others in sociology, reacting against this view, see globalization as a more positive, equalizing, democratic and benign process that brings an intermingling of cultures in a new cosmopolitanism, with the generalization of positive values such as universal human rights. One of my aims is to investigate some of these latter perspectives and, in doing so, themes of power, inequality and conflict come to the fore. This book takes distinctive concerns from sociology. It has an emphasis on critical analysis, examining power, inequality and conflict in global relations. It puts arguments about globalization to the test of theoretical coherence and empirical evidence. It looks for interdisciplinary links and a holistic view, outlining important social relations of culture and migration but seeing these as not separable from political and economic structures. I have also tried to be broad in the range of areas of globalization discussed, from hybrid cultures to worldwide poverty or power. The book aims to be accessible to an audience that is relatively new to this area, but without sacrificing its own arguments. Being critical can lead in different directions. In this book it leads to some partly pessimistic conclusions. Globalization may not be as developed as it seems. Insofar as it is, the picture is not as rosy as it might appear. The aim to solve world problems through global politics is well meant, but optimistic and hopeful. It is important to be negative if this is the most accurate conclusion to come to. But, alongside doubts about globalization and global politics, positive political arguments are put forward, for instance about how things could be made better in relation to migration, global poverty and international politics. The book argues that it is necessary to include national politics while going beyond them. At the level of global politics consensus and commonality cannot always be achieved because of inequalities, power and conflicts of interest and ideology. A politics of conflict between different sides might be necessary. This may involve the poorer and less powerful allying internationally against the richer and more powerful. This involves a politics that is international (rather than just national or global) and conflictual (rather than cosmopolitan or consensual). Political and pluralist perspectives on globalization One of the striking things about the literature on globalization is that positions that see globalization happening or are sceptical about its existence do not break down along clear ideological lines. There are neoliberals and Marxists who see neoliberal globalization going on, although they may not agree on its consequences (for instance, whether it will solve global inequality and poverty or not) or whether it is good or bad. Normatively and prescriptively there are divisions between neoliberals and Marxists, and sometimes empirically on the consequences of it, but, at the descriptive level concerning the fact of whether economic globalization is happening, the split between globalists and sceptics is not along the lines of political ideology. I have outlined some political ideology perspectives on globalization in table 0.1. These will come up again throughout the book. Table 0.1 Political ideologies and globalization Globalization happening? Descriptive Neoliberals Globalist Marxists Conservative nationalists Social democratic sceptics Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Social democratic globalists Yes Globalization good or bad? Normative Good. Bad (for socialist reasons). Bad (for nationalist reasons). Bad because: (a) unequal, i.e., not global; or (b) not route to solving poverty (protectionism better). Good, if subjected to global regulation. One issue discussed in this book is the tendency towards pluralist, hybrid and multidimensional views of globalization. Such views see globalization as operating at different levels, from the economic to the cultural or political. Sometimes emphases on multidimensionality are trying to get away from perspectives that focus mainly on economic globalization. Some views emphasize globalization as a hybrid and mixed phenomenon with inputs from many different parts of the world – one that is not just Westernized or homogenizing. For others, globalization is pluralistic and localized in its effects, with its reception varying depending on where it is received. Globalization is also driven by a multiplicity of factors rather than being reducible to single or selected causes. Globalization is multidimensional, hybrid, localized in its effects, and multicausal. Table 0.2 Pluralist views of globalization Multicausal Globalization not just caused by one chief factor, e.g., economy. Multilevel Economic, political, cultural, military, environmental. Hybrid Localized Mixture of inputs from East/West/North/South. Form globalization takes varies where it is received. Seeing globalization in these plural ways is helpful and an antidote to monocausal, overWesternized, homogenizing views, some of which focus on the economy at the expense of culture, or have a simplified view of its effects. Pluralistic views of globalization are an improvement on earlier sweeping general theories, less popular nowadays, which see globalization rolling out in a similar manner across the world. But there is a danger of being pluralist without analysing if there is primacy or greater causality at some levels, and ascertaining whether amongst the plural factors some are more dominant or have a causal effect on the others. To say globalization is multidimensional is helpful and brings out its mix. But there are dangers in seeing it as an equal and hybrid mix without seeing the primacy, dominance or determination of some factors over others. It is also important not to separate off these plural factors, focusing on each as if separate from others and distracting from causal relations between them. Concepts of globalization The rest of this chapter looks at the meaning of globalization. Defining globalization is important because this affects other issues discussed in this book, such as when globalization started. Globalization is a powerful discourse or ideational force. It has an impact on how we see the world and behave. If an idea has this power it’s important to pin down what it means and see if what it refers to lives up to the definition. The picture of globalization as inclusive, unifying and general makes it seem positive, whereas other definitions are more pessimistic. So it’s important to identify what globalization means and how this fits with reality. Globalization – beyond internationalization, liberalization and universalization? Scholte (2005) argues that a new word should not restate what is already known with other terminology but has to mean something different. He rejects four meanings of globalization – as internationalization, liberalization, universalization or Westernization. These, he says, do not add anything new and do not capture what is different about globalization. Internationalization involves the growth of transactions and interdependencies between countries. Things cross borders between states or national territories; for example, messages, ideas, goods, money, investments, pollutants and people. But Scholte says that inter-national transactions are nothing new, and that as the word ‘international’ captures what this describes we don’t need a new word for these sorts of processes. Scholte says that globalization is also not liberalization. The latter refers to the removal of constraints on movements of resources between countries – an open, borderless world. Liberalization involves abolishing regulatory measures such as trade barriers, capital controls and visa requirements, and is linked in part with neoliberalism. Both supporters and critics of neoliberalism define globalization in this way. Scholte says this liberalization has happened and has facilitated globalization. But, he argues, liberalization and globalization are two different things. Globalization can and could take different forms, including non-neoliberal ones. We don’t need the new word ‘globalization’ for this as this has long been debated as liberalization. Globalization is also not universalization. This involves the dispersion of objects and experiences to all parts of the earth, global here meaning worldwide or everywhere. Examples provided by Scholte include tobacco, clothes, the state, food, education, children’s toys and arms. Sometimes this gets extended into globalization as standardization or homogenization. But Scholte says there is nothing new about this. It is age-old, for instance, in world religions and trade. There is no need for new terminology for something we already have a word for. Globalization also has to be more than Westernization. This is a particular type of universalization, of Western structures such as capitalism, industrialism, rationalism, urbanism, individualism and democracy, or put more critically, colonization, Americanization and imperialism. Again, Scholte says these are part of globalization but not the same. Globalization can go in non-Western directions. It need not be imperialist if emancipatory movements can guide it. And Westernization existed long before globalization, so let’s call this Westernization and not invent a new word for it. For Scholte, globalization is deterritorialization or supraterritorialism. These involve more than just transplanetary links. Transplanetary connectivity, connections between parts of the world, has been around for many centuries. Supraterrritoriality, however, is relatively new and breaks with territorialist geography, with territories and borders being important. In the first edition of his book Scholte defined globalization as deterritorialization. In the second he replaces this with the idea of supraterritorialism. This, he says, is because the word ‘deterritorialization’ suggests that territory doesn’t matter any more, which is putting it too strongly. Transplanetary relations are more dense now than before, involving more people, more often, and are more extensive, intensive and of greater volume. Supraterritorial relations, however, are more recent, and involve not just an intensification of links across the world but different types of global connectivity. This intensification of links across boundaries also involves the decline of those boundaries. Links transcend and are detached from territory. They involve things like transworld simultaneity (e.g., people in lots of places doing the same thing, such as consuming the same brand of coffee) or transworld instantaneity (e.g., the telephone, where distant people talk to each other at the same time). Other examples of supraterritorialism for Scholte include jet planes, telecommunications, global media, finance, ecological problems and global consciousness (e.g., sports and human rights consciousness). In such cases more is involved than compression of time over space, for instance, where communications or travel over the same distances are quicker. There are, he says, social relations beyond territorial space. The difference between time–space compression and supraterritoriality is qualitative. It involves not just an intensification of existing relations, but new sorts of relations. For Scholte, territorial domains remain important but don’t define the whole framework where there is supraterritorialism. Scholte lists other examples of supraterritorialism, including communications (e.g., books, post, telegraph, phone, fax, texting, Internet, newspapers, radio, TV, film); the movement of people (e.g., tourism, migration/refugees, business travel); production processes (e.g., production that occurs in many places, global sourcing, global trade); consumption; global money/finance; global organizations (e.g., MNCs, faith-based, unions, NGOs, charities); military globalization (e.g., weapons that have global reach, war carried out from global locations); ecology (in both causes and effects); health (for instance, illnesses that spread globally); law (e.g., international laws); and global consciousness (e.g., sports competitions, global tours and events, conferences). A problem is that these are all examples of transplanetary connections as much as supraterritoriality, and Scholte makes a number of qualifications to what he is saying, saying that globalism has not eliminated territorialism which remains important, for instance, in production, governance, ecology and identities. The world is both territorial and global; no pure globality exists independently of territorial spaces. The global is not a domain separate from regional, national, provincial and local levels, and there is an intersection of all these. This is what Scholte says and these are quite big qualifications that seem to take the edge off ideas of deterritorialization and supraterritorialism. Furthermore, many things described as globalization fall into the categories of internationalization, liberalization or Westernization. Scholte himself says that these are part of globalization but just not the same as it. So it’s not clear how different globalization is from these, as he suggests. The exception is universalization. Few of the processes Scholte mentions are universal. So, while globalization encompasses internationalization, liberalization and Westernization as much as breaking from them, it rarely achieves the universalization he also differentiates globalization from. The qualifications that Scholte makes undermine his concept of globalization. They suggest that globalization is intertwined with territory rather than something above, beyond and separate from it. It might be better to say that what people talk about when discussing globalization are forms of Westernization, internationalization and liberalization, but that it is not above and beyond these. Sociologists and historians define globalization Waters (2001: 4) mentions definitions of globalization made by Robertson and Giddens. For Robertson (1992: 8): Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole … both concrete global interdependence and consciousness of the global whole. Here the compression of space is mentioned. Things that are at a distance as great as ever before are, because of technological developments, nearer in terms of the speed of communications and travel. We can see media from the other side of the world or communicate with someone there as if they are in the next room. This is also sometimes called the annihilation of space (Harvey 1991), where spatial distances no longer matter because of the possibility of communicating, moving and seeing over them fully and quickly. There is a cultural emphasis in Robertson’s concern with consciousness of globality. As we will see in future chapters, consciousness of globalization is, for some, as important as the reality of it. For Giddens (1990: 64): Globalization can … be defined as the intensification of world-wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and viceversa. This is a dialectical process because such local happenings may move in an obverse direction from the very distanciated relations that shape them. Local transformation is as much a part of globalization as the lateral extension of social connections across time and space. Here worldwide relations are seen as becoming more intense, with a stress on the importance of interactions between the local and global, in which the local is not just shaped by globalization but may react to it in an alternative way. Waters (2001: 5) sees globalization as a social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede and people become increasingly aware of this and act accordingly. Waters sees globalization as a process rather than an end, and he emphasizes culture and consciousness and the effect it has on action. Holton (2005) also stresses globalization as a process and defines it as: 1 Interconnection – the intensified movement of goods, money, technology, information, people, ideas and cultural practices across political and cultural boundaries. 2 The interdependence of these activities across boundaries, and convergence and integration, for instance, in prices and markets. Globalization must be more than movement that is episodic, or involves few people (e.g., as in early trade), or has few consequences for those not involved in it. 3 Holton also sees globalization as involving consciousness and identification of the world as a single place, for instance as in cosmopolitan culture, religions and environmentalism. There are overlaps here with Robertson’s consciousness-focused definition. 4 Holton emphasizes agency and process in globalization, as opposed to it being an external or fixed structure. Held et al. (1999) have what they call a transformationalist view. This sees globalization as: new but not unprecedented; open-ended, it may go in many different directions; and varying in the form it takes by place, class and over time. This is compatible with local, regional and national relations continuing but interacting with globalization and taking global forms, or forms affected by globalization. Globalization transforms human affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and continents. It involves: 1 The stretching of activities across frontiers so activities in one part of the world have significance for others in distant regions. There is transregional interconnectedness and a widening of networks. 2 World relations become regularized with the consequence that there is an intensification or growing magnitude of interconnections, interactions and flows across societies and states. 3 The speeding up of global interactions and processes as a result of the development of transport and communications. The global diffusion of ideas, goods, information, capital and people is faster. 4 The impact of distant events is magnified. Local developments can have big global consequences, so the boundaries between domestic and global affairs become blurred. Held et al. show that globalization is complex. It includes numerous processes rather than one activity or end, and involves both agency and structure, the input of actors into making it and external constraints on them. It is differentiated in the sense that it develops to different extents and in varying patterns in different areas. It is aterritorial, in that it can involve deterritorialization (where the stretching of activities goes beyond being coterminous with territories) but also reterritorialization (where globalization becomes established in regions and subnational areas, and even encourages nationalism). Some significant complexities and qualifications are added to the concept of globalization here. Held et al. distinguish between flows, which are movements of things, people, symbols, tokens and information across space, from networks, which are regularized or patterned interactions. This involves an important distinction between things moving across space and those movements becoming established or even a system. Held et al. also make some important qualifications about what globalization is not. They argue that globalization should not be confused with interdependence, integration, universalism or convergence. It is not interdependence because, they say, that involves symmetry rather than hierarchy and there is plenty of the latter in globalization; not integration because that implies shared community and that does not exist; not universalism because globalization is not shared by all people or communities in the same way; and not convergence because this assumes growing homogeneity and harmony, while globalization could lead to conflict. So this is a complex definition of globalization with some similarity to points voiced by sceptics about globalization. Some of the complexities and qualifications added here make what is described something less than what others might see as globalization. The historians Osterhammel and Petersson (2005) also stress regularization and stability in global relations as a prerequisite to globalization. They say that globalization is different from imperialism. While the idea of empire is revitalized in some concepts of globalization – for instance, those that stress American power – globalization is also more global and postcolonial. It includes the inputs of non-imperial sources, and involves the end of self-contained societies. They make the distinction between: (1) world history, which is the study of different civilizations, their internal dynamics and comparisons between them; (2) global history, which is the study of contacts and interactions between societies; and (3) globalization, which may grow out of some of those contacts and interactions. Globalization grows where the contacts and interactions become networks and interaction spheres. Not all interactions become networks. This requires longevity, and sometimes institutional reinforcement so that they gain the sort of stability also found in hierarchical organizations. Osterhammel and Petersson say institutions such as diplomacy and trade help to turn interactions into networks. Other factors in globalization they mention include range, importance, intensity and speed. These are enabled by technology and organizational and institutional support. The durability and frequency of relations affects whether interactions become a stable network, and this can be restricted by space, or frozen or reversed. As such, globalization is a process rather than being fixed or static at one moment. For Osterhammel and Petersson, the features that fit their definition started about 1500 or so and became established in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The concept summarized When the definitions of globalization supplied by these authors are put together, what does it all add up to? Globalization involves the compression of space such that distance is less of a factor than it used to be in terms of knowledge, communication and movement. Geography and territory is undermined and things start to develop at a level that is more than, and above, inter-national relations. What more has to happen for this to become globalization? 1 Globalization needs to be global in distance. Long-distance or transnational extensions of economy, politics and culture that are regional are not global because they do not extend globally. It would be a lot to say that to be globalization something has to reach every part of the world but it is reasonable to say that it needs to reach all continents and most parts of those continents. 2 Globalization needs to be globally inclusive in inputs as well as reach. So something that extends ideas or products from one part of the world to another is merely the extension of one part of the world, e.g., Westernization. Again, it would be a lot to say that absolutely all parts of the world need to have an input of equal weight. But globalization, to be ‘global’, needs to have inputs from across continents and many countries within them, rather than be just a one-way or very unequal process from one place to another. 3 There needs to be interdependency rather than just interconnection. So, if a stoppage of trade in luxury goods such as jewels or silk has no significant repercussions, maybe this is not real interdependency. But if a decline in trade has significant effects for the exporting society’s workers and economy, or for the access of the receiving society to goods, then there appears to be an interdependency. 4 There needs to be stability and regularity in relations so that, rather than being intermittent or temporary, these establish a structure or system. 5 Some other aspects could be added to make a more demanding concept of globalization – for example, that it needs to involve more than elites and include the masses, or that there needs to be not just globalization but also global consciousness. People need to not be just doing things globally but have an awareness of the globe as one place. As we shall see when we look at the history of globalization and sceptical perspectives on globalization, the use of such criteria leads some to decide that what is taking place internationally is not globalization. At the same time these are tough criteria – it would be difficult for anything to ever match up to all of them fully. If you see globalization as a process moving towards such criteria, rather than as an end, then globalization may well be something that is going on. Does defining globalization matter beyond the issue of just deciding when something is globalization or not? This is not just a question of academic definition. There are other things that make defining globalization important. One is that it ensures we see the power, inequality and conflict in globalization. Seeing some situations as globalization – as inclusive, integrated, two-way and globally extended – gives an impression of inclusivity and equality that is inaccurate. Questioning whether phenomena meet the definition of globalization helps to show the power, inequality and lack of inclusion in the processes being outlined. At the same time saying that certain things are not globalization, such as flows of capital or multinational corporations, is not to deny their existence or importance. What is being described by globalists may not be globalization but may still be happening and significant, and thus something which should be studied and analysed carefully. This is why globalization is important even if you don’t think it is happening! Practical note on reading chapters You can read this book by looking at chapters on areas of most interest to you and not reading the others. However, while individual chapters stand alone they are overlapping and interlinked. To avoid repetition, I have sometimes only mentioned briefly in some places issues that are developed more in other chapters. At the same time, some issues are of such significance in more than one chapter that they are mentioned, to some extent, in more than one place. FURTHER READING The literature on globalization is enormous. I haven’t tried to give a full range of references in the chapters of the book. However, at the end of each chapter there are suggestions for further reading. These are primarily for those who are relatively new to globalization and would like to go a bit further on any of the topics. Popular textbooks on globalization include Ritzer and Dean’s (2015) Globalization: A Basic Text, a shorter version of which is Ritzer (2011) Globalization: The Essentials. Jones’ (2010) Globalization takes a different approach of exploring globalization through key thinkers. There are lots of valuable readers on globalization. A useful critical reader is Appelbaum and Robinson’s Critical Globalization Studies (2005). Lechner and Boli (2015) The Globalization Reader, Lemert et al (2010) Globalization: A Reader, Benyon and Dunkerley (2001) Globalization: The Reader, Ritzer and Atalay (2010) Readings in Globalization, and Ritzer (2007) The Blackwell Companion to Globalization are all very useful as is Iyall Smith’s Sociology of Globalization (2013). Held et al.’s (1999) Global Transformations is quite an old book, but is an introduction to areas of globalization, with a historical perspective and both theoretical and empirical information. It argues for a transformationalist perspective, in between more globalist and sceptical views. It has a useful companion reader edited by Held and McGrew, Global Transformations Reader (2003). Sociologist Robert Holton has written a number of books, Globalization and the Nationstate (1998), Making Globalization (2005), Global Networks (2007), Global Finance (2012) and Global Inequalities (2014) that illuminate issues in a concise way. Scholte’s Globalization is a good book at an introductory level (2nd edn, 2005). Sociological perspectives that have a cultural and positive view of globalization have been mentioned in this introduction. For a powerful critical view from a sociologist who brings in politics and economics whilst also paying attention to media and culture, see Acts of Resistance (1998a), The Weight of the World (1999), and Firing Back (2003a), by the French writer Pierre Bourdieu.