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Globalization
The constraints of geography are shrinking and the world is becoming a single place. Globalization and the global society are increasingly occupying the centre of sociological debates. Widely discussed by journalists and a key goal for many businesses, globalization has become a buzz-word in recent years. In this extensively revised and restructured new edition of Globalization , Malcolm Waters provides a user-friendly introduction to the main arguments about the process, including a chapter on the critiques of the globalization thesis that have emerged since the first edition was published.
- GenresNonfiction
268 pages, Paperback
First published April 11, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 28, 2024
“Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole… both concrete global interdependence and consciousness of the global whole.”
This was an accessible read into globalization in every facet. Despite its publication date of 2000, I believe many of the concepts and examples discussed within still hold value to our current world-state.
The notes and conclusions at the end of every chapter allow for review of key concepts and theories discussed, which was sometimes a great relief from poignant technical jargon.
*3.5 stars rounded up*
This was an accessible read into globalization in every facet. Despite its publication date of 2000, I believe many of the concepts and examples discussed within still hold value to our current world-state.
The notes and conclusions at the end of every chapter allow for review of key concepts and theories discussed, which was sometimes a great relief from poignant technical jargon.
*3.5 stars rounded up*
December 29, 2016
I picked this up from a batch of books someone donated to MRN and thought I'd give it a read. Unlike most books dealing with this theme, which tend to have a large economic dimension, this is primarily a sociology text book, part of a 'key ideas' series written, I would think, for under-graduate students.
Waters explains that the concept of globalisation is bound to appeal to sociologists, because theirs is a discipline that concerns itself with 'universal' components of social life. He sees it as arising from the expansion of European culture across the planet, "via settlement, colonisation and cultural mimesis." He adds that it is "also bound up intrinsically with the pattern of capitalist development as it has ramified thrush political and cultural arenas." But this does not necessarily mean that every part of the globe is on its way to be Westernised or capitalist, "but rather that every set of social relations must establish its position n relation to the capitalist West."
A theorem is set out which structures the argument of the book. It suggests that globalisation has three components:
- the economy: social arrangements for production, exchange and consumption of goods.
- the polity: social arrangements for the concentration and application of power.
- the cultural: social arrangements for the "production, exchange and expression of symbols that represent facts, affects, meanings, beliefs, preferences, tastes and values."
Following Weber (and rejecting Marx's claim for the priority of economics, and Parson's for culture) Waters insists on the autonomy of these components. Because of these their logics tend in different directions. The material exchanges that make up the economic sphere tend to tie social relationships to localities, with spatial concentrations of labour, capital and raw materials. Politics functions across extended territories, functioning to control a given population that inhabits that area as well as harness its resources. The symbolic exchanges that make up the realm of culture detach these relationships from given spaces , claiming to speak for human fundamentals that apply anywhere at anytime.
Across its chapters the book discusses what are called the 'precursors' of globalisation theory, which includes Durkheim, Parson's Levy and Bell, but also , in a section headed 'world capitalism', the Marxist inflected Amin, Frank and Wallerstein. 'Global village' theorists are also discussed, amongst whom are McLuhan (naturally), Rosenau, and even David Harvey. 'Recent' theories, in which the idea of globalisation is explicit and central, started to emerge in the 1990s, and made use of notions like 'reflexivity' and 'space-time distanciation'. Robertson and Giddens are the leaders in this field.
A section on 'world class production' considers globalisation as an arrangement of the planet's human societies into developed market economies (DMCs) , newly developed (NDC) and least-developed (LDC) countries. Somewhere in the midst of this we get multinational enterprises (MNEs, or TNCs if you prefer transnational companies) which operate to knit all these parts into a functioning whole. The effect is to produce a 'cultural economy' where "symbolised markets' move beyond the capacity of states to manage them and units of production begin to downscale to a more individual and humanised scale." It seems that by following this channel, " The economy becomes so subordinate to individual taste and choice that it becomes reflexively marketised, and, because tokenised systems do not succumb to physical boundaries, reflexively globalised."
The emergence of 'planetary' politics is somewhat checked by the fact that power is exercised through concentration rather than dispersal, and this means that national states have an undiminished authority over people, even if no longer runs true with economics. But this so far has shown itself primarily as a crisis of the state, rather than any final settlement of what its remit is. This would seem to be the place to discuss what we now understand as a full-blown crisis of social liberalism, with more populist and authoritarian moods beginning to arise to challenge the commitments to the liberal democracies of the post WW2 period. But a book published in 1996 obviously did not have the experiences of the UK Brexit vote or Trump's extraordinary victory to draw on.
In short the book is an interesting primer on all the ideas about globalisation that where about 20 years ago. The core arguments do not seem particularly dated and its Weberian perspective is a useful reminder that the concept of globalisation is not always most fruitfully engaged with as though it was primarily an economic phenomenon.
Waters explains that the concept of globalisation is bound to appeal to sociologists, because theirs is a discipline that concerns itself with 'universal' components of social life. He sees it as arising from the expansion of European culture across the planet, "via settlement, colonisation and cultural mimesis." He adds that it is "also bound up intrinsically with the pattern of capitalist development as it has ramified thrush political and cultural arenas." But this does not necessarily mean that every part of the globe is on its way to be Westernised or capitalist, "but rather that every set of social relations must establish its position n relation to the capitalist West."
A theorem is set out which structures the argument of the book. It suggests that globalisation has three components:
- the economy: social arrangements for production, exchange and consumption of goods.
- the polity: social arrangements for the concentration and application of power.
- the cultural: social arrangements for the "production, exchange and expression of symbols that represent facts, affects, meanings, beliefs, preferences, tastes and values."
Following Weber (and rejecting Marx's claim for the priority of economics, and Parson's for culture) Waters insists on the autonomy of these components. Because of these their logics tend in different directions. The material exchanges that make up the economic sphere tend to tie social relationships to localities, with spatial concentrations of labour, capital and raw materials. Politics functions across extended territories, functioning to control a given population that inhabits that area as well as harness its resources. The symbolic exchanges that make up the realm of culture detach these relationships from given spaces , claiming to speak for human fundamentals that apply anywhere at anytime.
Across its chapters the book discusses what are called the 'precursors' of globalisation theory, which includes Durkheim, Parson's Levy and Bell, but also , in a section headed 'world capitalism', the Marxist inflected Amin, Frank and Wallerstein. 'Global village' theorists are also discussed, amongst whom are McLuhan (naturally), Rosenau, and even David Harvey. 'Recent' theories, in which the idea of globalisation is explicit and central, started to emerge in the 1990s, and made use of notions like 'reflexivity' and 'space-time distanciation'. Robertson and Giddens are the leaders in this field.
A section on 'world class production' considers globalisation as an arrangement of the planet's human societies into developed market economies (DMCs) , newly developed (NDC) and least-developed (LDC) countries. Somewhere in the midst of this we get multinational enterprises (MNEs, or TNCs if you prefer transnational companies) which operate to knit all these parts into a functioning whole. The effect is to produce a 'cultural economy' where "symbolised markets' move beyond the capacity of states to manage them and units of production begin to downscale to a more individual and humanised scale." It seems that by following this channel, " The economy becomes so subordinate to individual taste and choice that it becomes reflexively marketised, and, because tokenised systems do not succumb to physical boundaries, reflexively globalised."
The emergence of 'planetary' politics is somewhat checked by the fact that power is exercised through concentration rather than dispersal, and this means that national states have an undiminished authority over people, even if no longer runs true with economics. But this so far has shown itself primarily as a crisis of the state, rather than any final settlement of what its remit is. This would seem to be the place to discuss what we now understand as a full-blown crisis of social liberalism, with more populist and authoritarian moods beginning to arise to challenge the commitments to the liberal democracies of the post WW2 period. But a book published in 1996 obviously did not have the experiences of the UK Brexit vote or Trump's extraordinary victory to draw on.
In short the book is an interesting primer on all the ideas about globalisation that where about 20 years ago. The core arguments do not seem particularly dated and its Weberian perspective is a useful reminder that the concept of globalisation is not always most fruitfully engaged with as though it was primarily an economic phenomenon.
April 17, 2014
Un muy buen libro sobre las dimensiones económicas, políticas y culturales de la globalización. Toma las principales ideas sobre el proceso de globalización en el contexto de la modernización y postmodernización de muchos países.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews