Globalization

Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. Globalization has accelerated since the 18th century due to advances in transportation and communication technology. This increase in global interactions has caused a growth in international trade and the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and culture. Globalization is primarily an economic process of interaction and integration that is associated with social and cultural aspects. However, disputes and diplomacy are also large parts of the history of globalization, and of modern globalization.

Economically, globalization involves goods, services, data, technology, and the economic resources of capital.[1] The expansion of global markets liberalizes the economic activities of the exchange of goods and funds. Removal of cross-border trade barriers has made the formation of global markets more feasible.[2] Advances in transportation, like the steam locomotive, steamship, jet engine, and container ships, and developments in telecommunication infrastructure, like the telegraph, Internet, and mobile phones, have been major factors in globalization and have generated further interdependence of economic and cultural activities around the globe.[3][4][5]

Though many scholars place the origins of globalization in modern times, others trace its history to long before the European Age of Discovery and voyages to the New World, and some even to the third millennium BCE.[6] The term globalization first appeared in the early 20th century (supplanting an earlier French term mondialization), developed its current meaning some time in the second half of the 20th century, and came into popular use in the 1990s.[7] Large-scale globalization began in the 1820s, and in the late 19th century and early 20th century drove a rapid expansion in the connectivity of the world's economies and cultures.[8]

In 2000, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic aspects of globalization: trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movement of people, and the dissemination of knowledge.[9] Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business and work organization, economics, sociocultural resources, and the natural environment. Academic literature commonly divides globalization into three major areas: economic globalization, cultural globalization, and political globalization.[10]

The word globalization was used in the English language as early as the 1930s, but only in the context of education and the term failed to gain traction. Over the next few decades, the term was occasionally used by other scholars and media, but it was not clearly defined.[7] One of the first usages of the term in the meaning resembling the later, common usage was by French economist François Perroux in his essays from the early 1960s (in his French works he used the term mondialization (literary worldization), also translated as mundialization).[7] Theodore Levitt is often credited with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream business audience in the later in the middle of 1980s.[7]

Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations. Its antecedents date back to the great movements of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onward.[11][12]Due to the complexity of the concept, various research projects, articles, and discussions often stay focused on a single aspect of globalization.[13]

Globalization. Top-left: showing early migration patterns of humans across the globe as part of the history of globalization. Top-right: the Namban ship carrying Europeans to trade with Japan. Middle-right: the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, USA. Bottom-left: the American Walmart superstore, the largest company in the world by revenue as of 2021, in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Bottom-right: a map of undersea cable connections around Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The 13th century world-system, as described by Janet Abu-Lughod
Portuguese carrack in Nagasaki, 17th-century Japanese Nanban art
The Silk Road in the 1st century
Native New World crops exchanged globally: Maize, tomato, potato, vanilla, rubber, cacao, tobacco
Lisbon in the 1570s had many Africans
The 1843 launch of the Great Britain, the revolutionary ship of Isambard Kingdom Brunel
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the United Kingdom was a global superpower.
D.H. Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner, entered service in 1949
With a population of 1.4 billion, China is the world's second-largest economy.
Singapore is the top country in the Enabling Trade Index as of 2016.
U.S. Trade Balance and Trade Policy (1895–2015)
Dividends worth CZK 289 billion were paid to the foreign owners of Czech companies in 2016.[56]
Shakira, a Colombian multilingual singer-songwriter, playing outside her home country
McDonald's is commonly seen as a symbol of Globalization, often called McDonaldization of global society
Use of chili pepper has spread from the Americas to cuisines around the world, including Thailand, Korea, China, and Italy.[87]
The United Nations Headquarters in New York City
U.S. military presence around the world in 2007. As of 2015, the U.S. still had many bases and troops stationed globally.[97]
From the documentary Ukraine Is Not a Brothel. Radical group Femen protest against the increase in sex tourism into Ukraine.
Scheduled airline traffic in 2009
2010 London Youth Games opening ceremony. About 69% of children born in London in 2015 had at least one parent who was born abroad.[117]
The global digital divide: Computers per 100 people
The European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas, has been denounced by environmental activists and indigenous rights campaigners.
Hu Jintao of China and George W. Bush meet while attending an APEC summit in Santiago de Chile, 2004
As of 2017, there were 2,754 U.S. dollar billionaires worldwide, with a combined wealth of over US$9.2 trillion.[162]
Of the factors influencing the duration of economic growth in both developed and developing countries, income equality has a more beneficial impact than trade openness, sound political institutions, and foreign investment.[164]
Worlds regions by total wealth (in trillions USD), 2018
Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev after signing the New START treaty in Prague, 2010
Anti-TTIP demonstration in Hannover, Germany, 2016
World Bank Protester, Jakarta, Indonesia
Differences in national income equality around the world as measured by the national Gini coefficient, as of 2018.[199]
Countries by total wealth (trillions USD), Credit Suisse
Global share of wealth by wealth group, Credit Suisse, 2017
Immigrant rights march for amnesty, Los Angeles, on May Day, 2006
Deforestation of the Madagascar Highland Plateau has led to extensive siltation and unstable flows of western rivers.
a shows carbon footprint (CF) hotspots of foreign final consumption in China. b–d show carbon footprint hotspots of the consumption of the United States, Hong Kong, and Japan, respectively. Among all foreign regions, the United States, Hong Kong, and Japan have the largest CFs in China, contributing ~23.0%, 10.8%, and 9.0%, respectively, to the total foreign CF in China in 2012.