The Contemporary World

Subject Code: GE- CW

Course Title: The Contemporary World
No. of Units: 3 Units
Instructor: Menchu Q. Cimafranca
The Contemporary World

Globalization

The term globalization comes from English, as base of the word

“globalization” which refers to the emerging of an international network,
belonging to an economic and social system1.

READ Globalization encompasses a multitude of processes that involves

the economy, political systems, culture, social structures, and others which
are directly affected whenever there is a change or fluctuation.

The Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson, in his book “The Race to the Top: The Real Story
of Globalization”, says that globalization "is the process of the shrinking of the world, the
shortening of distances, and the closeness of things. It allows the increased interaction of any
person on one part of the world to someone found on the other side of the world, in order to
benefit"2.

Two (2) Classifications of Defining Globalization

1. Broad and Inclusive

Globalization means the onset of the borderless world. It can include a variety of issues
that deal with overcoming traditional boundaries. However, it does not shed light on the
implications of globalization due to its vagueness.

2. Narrow and Exclusive

Globalization is justified better but can be limiting in the sense that the application
adhere to only particular definitions. According to Robert Cox’s definition, it suits best in this
type wherein, “the characteristics of the globalization trend include the internationalizing of
production, the new international division of labor, new migratory movements from south to
north.”

Different Definitions of Globalization

 Globalization is a world of things that has different speeds, axes, points, of origin and
termination and varied relationships to institutional structures in different regions,
nations or societies (Arjun Appadurai).

 Globalization, according to Cesare Poppi, is the debate and the debate is globalization.
One becomes part and parcel of the other.

 Globalization is reality. It is changing as human society develops. It has happened before

and still happening today.

 Globalization is a concept that is not easy to define because in reality, globalization has a
shifting nature.3
1
“Globalization”. Online etymology dictionary. www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=globalization.
2
Larsson, Thomas. (2001). The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute. p.
9. ISBN 978-1930865150
3
Claudio, L. E. & Abinales, P. N. (2018). The Contemporary World. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc.

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The Contemporary World

Types of globalization: Economic, political, cultural

There are three types of globalization:

1. Economic globalization.

This type focuses on the unification and integration of international financial markets, as
well as multinational corporations that have a significant influence on international markets.

2. Political globalization.

This type deals mainly with policies designed to facilitate international trade and
commerce. It also deals with the institutions that implement these policies, which can include
national governments as well as international institutions, such as the International
Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization.

3. Cultural globalization.

This type focuses on the social factors that cause cultures to converge -- such as increased
ease of communication and transportation, brought about by technology. 4

Economic globalization

Economic globalization is a historical process representing the result of human innovation

and technological progress. It is characterized by the increasing integration of economies around
the world through the movement goods, services, and capital across borders. These changes are
the products of people organizations, institutions, and technologies.

The term "globalization" commonly used in the year 1980s, reflecting technological
advances that made it easier and quicker to complete international transactions—both trade and
financial flows. It refers to an extension beyond national borders of the same market forces that
have operated for centuries at all levels of human economic activity—village markets, urban
industries, or financial centers. 5

Global Economy

The international spread of capitalism, especially in recent decades, across national

boundaries and with minimal restrictions by governments. The global economy has become hotly
controversial. Critics allege that its props, free markets and free trade, take jobs away from well-
paid workers in the wealthy nations while creating sweatshops in the poor ones. Its supporters
insist that the free movement of capital stimulates investment in poor nations and creates jobs
in them. The process is also called globalization.6

4
https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/globalization
5
https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ib/2008/053008.htm
6 https://www.dictionary.com/browse/global-economy

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The Contemporary World

Global Trade

Global trade is also known as international trade, it is simply the import and export of
goods and services across international boundaries.
Goods and services that enter into a country for sale are called imports. Goods and
services that leave a country for sale in another country are called exports. For example, a
country may import wheat because it doesn't have much arable land, but export oil because it
has oil in abundance.
Underlying a fundamental concept global trade is the concept of comparative advantage,
developed by David Ricardo in the 19th century. The doctrine of comparative advantage states
that a country can produce some goods or services more cheaply than other countries. In
technical terms, the country is able to produce a specific good or service at a lower opportunity
cost than others.7

Theories of Global Stratification

Global stratification is social stratification on a global scale. Where social stratification
draws attention to inequalities between smaller groups of people, global stratification draws
attention to inequalities between entire countries. Social stratification is a system by which
society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy, and we've talked about it in depth in other
lessons. In this lesson, we'll focus not on how classes of people are stratified but how entire
nations are stratified in relation to each other.8

With any social issue, global or otherwise, scholars have developed a variety of theories
to study global stratification. The two most widely applied perspectives are modernization
theory and dependency theory.

Modernization Theory
According to modernization theory, low-income countries are affected by their lack of
industrialization and can improve their global economic standing through (Armer and Katsillis
2010):
1. an adjustment of cultural values and attitudes to work
2. industrialization and other forms of economic growth

Dependency theory
Was created in part as a response to the Western-centric mindset of modernization
theory. It states that global inequality is primarily caused by core nations (or high-income nations)
exploiting semi-peripheral and peripheral nations (or middle-income and low-income nations),
which creates a cycle of dependence (Hendricks 2010). As long as peripheral nations are
dependent on core nations for economic stimulus and access to a larger piece of the global
economy, they will never achieve stable and consistent economic growth. Further, the theory
states that since core nations, as well as the World Bank, choose which countries to make loans
to, and for what they will loan funds, they are creating highly segmented labor markets that are
built to benefit the dominant market countries.9

7
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-global-trade-definition-advantages
barriers.html#:~:text=Global%20trade%2C%20also%20known%20as,for%20sale%20are%20called%20imports.
8
https://study.com/academy/lesson/global-stratification-definition-differences-in-income-levels-and-poverty.html
9
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/theoretical-perspectives-on-global-stratification/

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The Contemporary World

Four Stages of Modernization

1. Traditional Stage
It refers to societies that are structured around small, local communities with production
typically being done in family settings with limited resources and technology. Most of their
time is spent on labouring to produce food.

2. The Take-off Stage

People begin to use their individual talents to produce things beyond necessities. This
innovation creates new markets for trade.

3. Technological Maturity
It is where technological growth of the earlier periods begins to bear fruit in the form of
population growth, reductions in absolute poverty levels and more diverse job opportunities.

4. High Mass Consumption

It is when the country is big enough that production becomes more about wants than
needs. Many of these countries put social support systems in place to ensure that all of their
citizens have access to basic necessities.

Market Integration
When prices among different locations or related goods follow similar patterns over a
long period of time Market integration occurs. Groups of goods often move proportionally to
each other and when this relation is very clear among different markets it is said that the markets
are integrated. Thus, market integration is an indicator that explains how much different markets
are related to each other. A marketer plays the role of an integrator in the sense that he collects
feedback or vital inputs from other channel members and consumers and provides product
solutions to customers by coordinating multiple functions of organization. 10

Three Sectors of Production

1. Primary Sector
It extracts raw materials from the natural environments. Workers, like farmers or
miners, fit well in the job description within the primary sector.
Extraction of raw materials – mining, fishing and agriculture.

2. Secondary Sector (Manufacturing Sector)

It gains raw materials and transforms them into manufactured goods. Someone
from the primary sector extracts oil from the earth, then, someone from the secondary
sector refines the petroleum to gasoline.
Concerned with producing finished goods, e.g. Construction sector,
manufacturing and utilities, e.g. electricity.

3. Tertiary Sector
It involves services rather than goods. It offers services by doing things rather than
making things. Concerned with offering intangible goods and services to consumers. This
includes retail, tourism, banking, entertainment and I.T. services.11

10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_integration
11
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/12436/concepts/sectors-economy/

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The Contemporary World

International Financial Institutions

International Financial Institutions were founded by groups of countries to promote

public and private investment to foster economic and social development in developing and
transitioning countries.12
World economies have been brought closer together by globalization. It is referred in the
sentence, “When the American economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.”

The Bretton Wood System

The Bretton Wood System was inaugurated in 1944, during the United Nations Monetary
and Financial Conference. It was largely influenced by the ideas of British economist John
Maynard Keynes, who believed that economic crises occur not when a country does not have
enough money but when money is not being spent and thereby, not moving it.

Bretton Woods established a system of payments based on the dollar, which defined all
currencies in relation to the dollar, itself convertible into gold, and above all, "as good as gold"
for trade. U.S. currency was now effectively the world currency, the standard to which every
other currency was pegged. As the world's key currency, most international transactions were
denominated in U.S. dollars.13

Under the Bretton Woods System, gold was the basis for the U.S. dollar and other
currencies were pegged to the U.S. dollar’s value. The Bretton Woods System effectively came
to an end in the early 1970s when President Richard M. Nixon announced that the U.S. would no
longer exchange gold for U.S. currency.14

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) & The World Trade Organization (WTO)

One of the systems born out of Bretton Woods was the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) and was established in Oct. 30, 1947, by 23 countries, after World War II, and
became law on Jan. 1, 1948. Was a legal agreement minimizing barriers to international trade by
eliminating or reducing quotas, tariffs, and subsidies while preserving significant regulations.15

12
https://www.cinfo.ch/en/un-ifi-careers/working-international-financial-institutions/international-financial-
institutions
13
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bretton_Woods_system&oldid=988516619
14
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brettonwoodsagreement.asp#citation-1
15
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gatt.asp#citation-1

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The Contemporary World

The World Trade Organization (WTO)

The only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between
nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s
trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to ensure that trade flows as
smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. 16

Capitalism and Socialism

There were two (2) competing economic models that sprung up around the time of the
Industrial Revolution, as economic capital became more and more important to the production
of goods.

Capitalism is a system in which all natural resources and means of production are privately
owned. It emphasizes profit maximization and competitions as the main drivers of efficiency. This
means that when one owns a business, he needs to outperform his competitors if he is going to
succeed. He is incentivised to be more efficient by improving the quality of one’s product and
reducing its prices.

Global Interstate System

It is the whole system of human interactions. The modern world-system is structured

politically as an interstate system – a system of competing and allying states. Political Scientists
commonly call this the international system, and it is the main focus of the field of International
Relations.

Refers to the relationship between different state union. The modern world-system is
now a global economy with a global political system (the modern interstate system). It also
includes all the cultural aspects and interaction networks of the human population.

16
https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/thewto_e.htm

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The Contemporary World

Global governance

Global governance or world governance is a movement towards political cooperation

among transnational actors, aimed at negotiating responses to problems that affect more than
one state or region.

A continuous process of balancing different interests and initiating cooperative action is

called global governance. The basis for this is the coordination of national policies and
identification of shared norms and rules.17

A product of neo-liberal paradigm shifts in international political and economic

relations.18

A movement towards political cooperation among transnational actors, aimed at

negotiating responses to problems that affect more than one state or region.19

Forms of global governance

1. top-down governance
2. bottom-up governance,
3. market governance
4. network governance
5. side-by-side governance
6. complex web governance

17
https://english.bdi.eu/article/news/global-governance-shaping-globalization/
18
https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201545
19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_governance

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The Contemporary World

Global Divides: The North and the South

In the 1980s, the Brandt Line was developed as a way of showing the how the world was
geographically split into relatively richer and poorer nations. According to this model:

 Richer countries are almost all located in the Northern Hemisphere.

 Poorer countries are mostly located in tropical regions and in the Southern Hemisphere.

The North is comprised of all First World countries and most Second World countries
while the South is comprised of Third World countries. The North-South Divide arose during the
Cold War of the mid-20th century. Countries during this time were primarily categorized
according to their alignment between the Russian East and the American West. Countries in the
East like the Soviet Union and China which became classified as Second World countries. In the
west, the United States and its allies were labelled as First World countries. This division left out
many countries which were poorer than the First World and Second World countries. The poor
countries were eventually labeled as Third World countries.20

20
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-the-north-south-divide.html

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The Contemporary World

Asian Regionalism
Nations believe that regionalism can build up and support their national interest in
economic, military, political and cultural contexts.

Regionalization
Refers to the “regional concentration of economic flows.”

Regionalism
“A political process characterized by economic policy cooperation and coordination
among countries.”21

Regionalism in International Relation

The manifestation or expression of a common sense of cultural identity and purpose
combined with the creation and implementation of institutions that express a particular identity
and shape collective action within a geographical region.

Advantages of Regionalism in Asia

1. Contribute to the efficiency and stability of global financial markets.

2. Generate productivity gains, new ideas, and competition
3. Diversify sources of global demand, helping to stabilize the world economy and
diminish the risks posed
4. Provide leadership
5. Create regional mechanisms

Global Media Cultures

It explores the relationship between the media, culture, and globalization.

Mass Media

It means a technology whether written, broadcast, or spoken that is intended to reach a

mass audience. Mass media involves simultaneous communication with many people from
different countries.

In cultural studies, media culture refers to the current Western capitalist society that
emerged and developed from the 20th century, under the influence of mass media. Media
cultures takes part in the process of globalization, including how they challenge existing cultures
and create new alternative symbolic and cultural communities. 22

21
Claudio, L. E. & Abinales, P. N. (2018). The Contemporary World. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc.
22
www.prezi.com

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The Contemporary World

The Globalization of Religion

Religion
A collection of cultural systems, beliefs systems, and world views that establishes symbols
that relate humanity to spirituality and to moral values. Religion optimizes the definition of
globalization due to the fact that it can be spread more efficiently than ever before through the
use of different technological tools through the use of magazines, the media, Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, and much more.

 Religion is concerned with the sacred, while globalism places value on material wealth.
 Religion follows divine commandments, while globalism abides by human-made laws.
 Religion assumes that there is “the possibility of communication between humans and
the transcendent.”23

Global Population and Mobility

Globalization certainly affects rural and urban areas, global forces are centered in cities.
Global operations are centralized in cities.

The Global City

Cosmopolitan as an Attribute
“Cultural Diversity is detected on the surface as “cosmopolitan feel”. The global city’s
“natives” encounter and engage daily with a mixture of immigrants and visitors. The result is
cosmopolitan consumption, cosmopolitan work culture, global networking and “global”
transnational community relations” -Val Colic -Peisker

Its Colonial Roots and Linkages

“Global cities transitioned from being colonial entrepots to become major financial hubs
and destination centers. The nodal points in the global city network have formed themselves in
places where networks already existed” - Gregory Bracken

Global Demography
The Theory of Demographic Transition a period of high birth and death rates to eras of
lower birth and death rates, as society transitioned from agrarian or pre-industrial to
industrialization.
” Before the start of the demographic transition, life was short, birth were many, growth
was slow and the population was young. During transition, first mortality and then fertility
declined, causing population growth rates to accelerate and then slow again, moving toward low
fertility, long life and an old population.” -Ronald Lee

23
Claudio, L. E. & Abinales, P. N. (2018). The Contemporary World. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc.

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The Contemporary World

Global Migration

A situation in which people go to live in foreign countries, especially to find work. Most
global migration is from developing countries to developed ones. Global migration can be
understood as a cause and effect relationship, though the causes are just as numerous as their
effects. People move across international borders for a variety of reasons such as economic
reasons, political reasons, social factors, cultural factors, push-pull factor.

Push Factors: Reasons to Leave Factors that help migrants decide to leave their home.
Pull Factors: Reasons to Migrate Factors that attract people and area where immigrants
are going.

Sustainable development

The idea that human societies must live and meet their needs without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Gro Harlem Brundtland first introduced the concept of sustainable development in 1987.
He was then the Prime Minister of Norway and chairman of the World Commission on
Environment and Development.

Social Goals
Sustains institutions, improves justice and encourages participation
 Economic Goals
Ensures basic needs, equity and employment opportunities
 Environmental Goals
Maintains genetic diversity which maximizes productivity and renewal

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The Contemporary World

Global Food Security

Access to quality, nutritious food is fundamental to human existence. Secure access to

food can produce wide ranging positive impacts, including:

 Economic growth and job creation

 Poverty reduction
 Trade opportunities
 Increased global security and stability
 Improved health and healthcare 24

The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing "when all people at all times
have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life."

The concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to
food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences.

 Food stability: Refers to the ability to obtain food over time.

 Food access: Refers to the affordability and allocation of food, as well as the preferences
of individuals and households.
 Food availability: Relates to the supply of food through production, distribution, and
exchange.25

Global Citizenship

Citizenship that puts emphasis on one’s responsibilities to the international community. A

global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their place in
it. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more
peaceful, sustainable and fairer.

For Oxfam, global citizenship is all about encouraging young people to develop the
knowledge, skills and values they need to engage with the world. And it's about the belief that
we can all make a difference.

Global citizenship helps young people to:

 Build their own understanding of world events.

 Think about their values and what's important to them.
 Take learning into the real world.
 Challenge ignorance and intolerance.
 Get involved in their local, national and global communities.
 Develop an argument and voice their opinions.
 See that they have power to act and influence the world around them. 26

24
https://nifa.usda.gov/topic/global-food-security
25
https://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/nutrition/foodsecurity/
26
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/who-we-are/what-is-global-citizenship/

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