Globalisation

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Political Science Class XII (Contemporary World Politics), Chapter 7.

Three people, one big idea

Janardhan works the night shift in a Bangalore call centre and speaks to customers on the other side of the world. Ramdhari rides a cycle made in China and finds that his daughter wants a Barbie doll made in the United States. Sarika, a first-generation learner, takes a job that her grandmother thinks a woman should not do. Each of them is living a different face of the same process, and the exam often asks you to match them.

Not every example is positive. Farmers' suicides linked to the price of seeds sold by multinational companies, small shopkeepers worried about international chains, and groups threatening girls who wear western clothes show that globalisation is not always positive and not only economic.

What is globalisation?

Globalisation is about flows: of ideas, capital, commodities and people across the world. The crucial result is worldwide interconnectedness, created and kept going by those constant flows.

Three points follow, and each is a favourite for statement questions.

Why is it happening now?

The four flows are old. Merchant ships, religious missions and migrations carried goods, beliefs and people across the world for centuries. What is new is the scale and speed.

The single biggest enabler is technology: the telegraph, the telephone and the microchip revolutionised communication, much as printing once laid the basis of modern nationalism. But technology alone is not enough. People also have to see how connected they are. The spread of bird flu across borders, the 2004 tsunami that struck many coastlines, and a financial crisis in one country that panics another make that connection visible.

Political consequences: what happens to the state?

Globalisation affects the state in three ways at once. These are not alternatives, and a CUET question may ask you to pick all that apply.

Two views. For the exam: globalisation reduces state capacity, because the market and companies limit what governments can do. Another reading: the state remains the main political unit and in some respects gains power, since new technology helps it gather information about citizens and govern. The textbook treats both as true together.

Pause and predict: A statement says "Globalisation means the end of the state." Is it correct?

Check your answer: No. The state moves from welfare functions towards core functions, and in some ways its capacity increases. It does not disappear.

Economic consequences: who gains and who loses?

Globalisation is about who gains and who loses, and the IMF and WTO play a major role. It has produced:

That last row is a famous exam point: capital and commodities cross borders more easily than people.

Two views. For the exam: the economic debate has two sides. Critics argue that when the state withdraws, only a small section of society benefits. They want social safety nets for the economically weak, and some call forced globalisation re-colonisation. Advocates argue that de-regulation produces greater growth, that trade between countries (the comparative trade argument) benefits all, and that globalisation is inevitable, so the best response is to engage with it wisely.

Cultural consequences: one world culture or many?

Globalisation brings two opposite cultural effects at once.

Homogenisation and heterogenisation happen at the same time, and exchange between cultures is rarely one-way.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: McDonaldisation means cultures buying into the dominant American dream. In reality: the word was popularised by the sociologist George Ritzer, who used it for the spread of the fast food model of efficiency and predictability into many areas of life. The textbook gives it a cultural meaning, and the cultural meaning is the one to use in the exam.

India and globalisation

India's relationship with the world economy has moved through three phases.

The reforms of 1991 had two causes together: a financial crisis and the wish for higher rates of economic growth.

Resistance to globalisation

Opposition has come from different directions. Both sides have used global networks to organise.

Resistance has taken organised forms. In 1999, protests in Seattle accused powerful states of unfair practices in the WTO. The World Social Forum (WSF) is a global platform of human rights activists, environmentalists, labour, youth and women's groups opposed to neo-liberal globalisation.

In India, resistance has come from the Left parties and the Indian Social Forum, from trade unions and farmers' organisations protesting the entry of MNCs, and from anger over the patenting of Indian plants such as neem by American and European firms. Right-wing resistance has focused on cultural influences such as foreign television channels, Valentine's Day and western dress for women.

Pause and predict: The first World Social Forum met in Mumbai and the Seattle protests were against the WSF. Spot the two mistakes.

Check your answer: The first WSF was at Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001; Mumbai hosted the fourth, in 2004. The Seattle protests of 1999 were against the WTO, not the WSF.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Before this chapter: Environment and Natural Resources shows global problems that cross borders in the same way.
• Same theme: International Organisations covers the IMF, World Bank and WTO that shape economic globalisation.
• Power shifts: Contemporary Centres of Power looks at the economic blocs and rising powers of the globalised world.
• India link: Politics of Planned Development explains the protectionist policies of the decades before 1991.