Globalization is one of the most studied issues of our time.

As a result, many
discipline-specific modes of understanding globalization have emerged. But how can
one grasp globalization beyond individual disciplines? Muqtedar Khan, Assistant
Professor at the University of Delaware, describes how he approaches this subject
with his undergraduate students.

or the economist, globalization is essentially the emergence of a global market. For the
historian, it is an epoch dominated by global capitalism.

Defining globalization
For the sociologist, globalization at once underscores the celebration of diversity as well as
the convergence of social preferences in matters of lifestyle and social values.

Ultimately,
citizens from all
political
persuasions
can find
elements in
globalization
that they
welcome.

For the political scientist, globalization is the gradual erosion of state

sovereignty.
While all discipline-specific studies of globalization do advance a rich and
nuanced understanding, each discipline merely explains a part of the
phenomenon just like the proverbial description of an elephant by six
blind men.
That is why globalization is best understood as a concept that transcends
individual disciplines and also unites them. Globalization must
therefore be approached from a multidisciplinary perspective.

The three Ps
Far beyond the issue of globalization itself, the necessary integration of human sciences to
understand it in all its dimensions is one of the many profound consequences of
globalization.
For my undergraduate students, I usually describe globalization as a three-dimensional
concept. Globalization is a phenomenon, it is a philosophy and it is a process.

Globalization First: As a phenomenon

These are the three Ps of globalization. Rather than teach under the disciplinary structure
such as economic globalization, political globalization, cultural globalization we can
explore all these dimensions within the context of each P.

Those on the
right favor the
spread of free
markets and
investment
flows. Those on
Globalization is a phenomenon that manifests the extremely intricate
the left support
interconnectedness of human life across the planet. While this is not
the emergence
new, its awareness, reach and immediate implications are striking.
of a truly global
For example, all of us on planet earth share the same environment. But culture
based on the
we did not begin to realize how this shared environment linked our
present and future until we became aware of global warming and its
values of
causes.
multiculturalis
m and
Compressing time and space
democracy.
Driving SUVs in North America and cutting trees in Brazil can
immediately raise the prospects of skin cancer in Australia or affect the crops in India
through climate changes.
Globalization is the complex interconnectedness of peoples present and future. This
interconnectedness is becoming the dominant character of our political, cultural, economic
and natural environments.

Globalization Second: As a philosophy

In corporate boardrooms and in government situation rooms everywhere, holding a global
vision has become the necessary pre-requisite for effective policy and strategy.

Globalization is
best
understood as
a concept that
at once
transcends
individual
disciplines and
also unites
them.

Governments and corporations can no longer make a successful

intervention in the polity or the economy without anticipating and
preparing for global consequences.
This viewpoint or philosophy of globalization which essentially
describes the reality of being interconnected is also known as
globalism.
Globalism holds the following beliefs: The world is rapidly integrating in
all spheres. Peoples economic, political and cultural expectations are
converging.

Converging expectations
What ultimately helps this process along is that citizens from all political persuasions can
find elements in it they welcome. Those on the right favor the spread of free markets and
investment flows. Those on the left support the emergence of a truly global culture based
on the values of multiculturalism and democracy.
At the same time, globalization whether we like it or not is an inevitable and
irreversible process.

The inevitability of globalization

However, the integration of economies, the standardization of politics
through the domination of international norms and laws over domestic
regulation makes this conclusion inevitable.

This integration is, in effect, institutionalizing the philosophy of

globalism. This sounds harsh and is bound to lead to friction, until
you realize that, once again, both sides of the debate have something
they like.

Single
disciplines
merely explain
a part of the
phenomenon
just like the
proverbial
description of
an elephant by
six blind men.

For those on the left and in NGOs, few would want a world without
vehicles such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And few on the right and in business
would advocate a world without the WTO.

Globalization Third: As a process

Thus, faith and interest in globalism drives globalization and, in turn, globalization
spreads globalism. The key to understanding globalization is to imagine it as a process that
seeks to eliminate political and geographical distances between peoples.
The two key engines of globalization are the technology revolution and politico-economic
liberalization.

www.interconnectedness.org
By now, everybody recognizes the potential and the promise of the Internet. The World
Wide Web has created a virtual reality that has made time and distance irrelevant.

The necessary
integration of
human
sciences to
understand
globalization is
one of its many
profound
consequences.

In many ways, the chat rooms of today are the factories and cultural
hubs of the future. They have virtually eliminated physical, temporal and
cultural distances between peoples.
The world of nation states until now depended on the concept of
sovereignty as the organizing principle. In order to realize their sovereign
capabilities, states erected a huge legal edifice that disabled any
initiative without state authority.

The growth of institutional barriers

But now with globalization, states are collectively creating an alternate edifice of
international norms and regulations through international bodies such as the UN and the
WTO.

These institutions allow states to monitor activities without acting as barriers to inter-state
flows.

A world on the move

The new environment of liberalization has made it easier, with the help of technologies, to
quickly move people, ideas, capital and goods across borders.
Globalization in that sense is basically the heightened mobility of ideas, peoples, goods and
capital across borders. This enhanced mobility is the chief process of globalization and its
engines are liberalization and technology.