Understanding Globalization: Origins, Impact, and Drivers

Posted on Apr 5, 2025 in Social sciences

Origins of Globalization

Until a few centuries ago, the countries of the earth lived almost isolated from each other. It is true that in some places there were great empires, but the linkages between the various regions of the world were tenuous or nonexistent. This situation changed in the late fourteenth century. The reasons which prompted this were commercial interests and conquest. As a result of this process, different regions of the earth were integrated into a single global market organized by the colonial powers to serve their interests. This historical development is known as globalization.

Current Phase of Globalization

The globalization process has lasted for over 500 years and has developed at an increasingly rapid pace. This rate was accelerated with the industrial revolution and the subsequent transformation of the means of transport. The invention of modern media greatly facilitated the dissemination of culture, science, technology, and the influence of the most advanced countries. The industrial era gave an important impetus to the phenomenon of globalization. This final stage is post-industrial or informational. Globalization is the latest phase of globalization that began in the ‘Age of Discovery’ and won a major boost with the industrial revolution.

Causes of Globalization

The main causes of this new stage, which has been termed economic globalization, are economic and technological:

  1. On the economic front, the capitalist system was deeply renovated and now organizes its activities on a truly planetary scale.
  2. In the technological field, the decisive factor of the current process of globalization is the development of new information technologies and communication, most comprehensively and influentially, the internet.

Levels of Globalization

  1. At the economic level: More and more goods and services are directed to a market of global dimension.
  2. At the population level: Globalization has meant a huge increase in the mobility of people.
  3. At the cultural level: Globalization is enhancing the cultural relations between countries and therefore, the diffusion of ideas and the mixture of customs.

Globalization and Modernization

Both the phenomenon of globalization in general and its current phase have been the result of modernization processes. Over the last centuries, human societies have become ever more profoundly modernized. Globalization is accelerating the modernization process remarkably. Thus, globalization is both the cause and effect of the current wave of modernization that is affecting, in unequal degree, all countries of the earth. This means that it is unlikely that this modernization is progressing without some form of globalization intensifying. And second, that globalization will most likely affect modernization in the countries it affects. So, if we consider the modernization of societies is a good thing, we cannot protest the fact of globalization.

Who Drives Globalization

  1. Transnational corporations that lead the global expansion of markets, often cornering the price of less competitive firms at a national or local scale.
  2. Governments that have chosen the liberalization and opening of their economies as a pathway to faster development.
  3. International organizations, which provide the necessary framework for cooperation among states.
  4. The agencies and major news television stations that generate and manage the information disseminated and consumed by the international community.

Globalization and Material Welfare

Globalization has been a very positive development for economic growth globally. Following this development, the levels of material wellbeing of many people have improved, but others have hardly benefited from this improvement.

Globalization and Culture

Although much of the world’s population has yet to fully benefit from these opportunities, it would be unfair to ignore the progress being made in widening human groups. Moreover, globalization encourages the spread of human rights and democracy.

Globalization and Citizenship

Globalization is becoming, albeit partially, a global conception of citizenship. This concept promotes the progressive recognition by the international community of the human rights of any person and population in the world.