Overview: What is Globalization? 

Globalization is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. Advances in transportation (such as the steam locomotive, steamship, jet engine, and container ships) and in telecommunications infrastructure (including the rise of the telegraph and its modern offspring, the Internet, and mobile phones) have been major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities in nations around the world. Though scholars place the origins of globalization in modern times, others trace its history long before the cross-Atlantic travel by Europeans in the 15th century. Some even trace the origins to the third millennium BCE. Large-scale globalization began in the 19th century, and in the late 19th century and early 20th century, the connectivity of the world's economies and cultures grew very quickly.

The word globalization is a very recent term, only establishing its current meaning in the 1970s when it was brought about by the intersections of the work of academics, librarians, journalists, and publishers/editors. 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. Further, environmental challenges such as global warming, cross-boundary water and air pollution, and over-fishing of the ocean are linked with globalization. Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business and work organization, economics, socio-cultural resources, and the natural environment. Academic literature commonly subdivides globalization into three major areas: economic globalization, cultural globalization, and political globalization.

Globalization has been driven by the global expansion of multinational corporations based in the United States and Europe, as well as the worldwide exchange of new developments in science, technology, and products. The direction of cultural flows has often been one-sided, and worldwide export of Western culture to non-Western nations has proliferated through new forms of mass media: film, radio, television, recorded music, and most recently the internet. Development and growth of international transport and telecommunication played a decisive role in modern globalization.

Economic Globalization

The Bretton Woods Conference

After the Second World War, work by politicians led to the Bretton Woods Conference from July 1-22, 1944. Formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, the conference was a gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II. Out of the conference came an agreement by major governments to lay down the framework for international monetary policy, commerce, and finance, as well as the founding of several international institutions intended to facilitate economic growth by lowering trade barriers. 

GATT and WTO

One of the earliest institutions was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which initially led to a series of agreements to remove trade restrictions. GATT's successor was the World Trade Organization (WTO), which provided a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements and a dispute resolution process. Other institutions, including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have been facilitated by advances in technology, which have reduced the costs of trade and trade negotiation rounds, originally under the auspices of the GATT. Other bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have also been signed in pursuit of the goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.

Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the WTO have included:

• Promotion of free trade and the elimination of tariffs
• Creation of free trade zones with small or no tariffs
• Reduced transportation costs, especially resulting from development of containerization for ocean shipping
• Reduction or elimination of capital controls
• Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for local businesses
• Creation of subsidies for global corporations
• Harmonization of intellectual property laws across the majority of nation-states, with more restrictions put in place
• Supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions (e.g., patents granted by China would be recognized in the United States)

Cultural Globalization

Cultural globalization refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings, and values around the world in such a way as to extend and intensify social relations. This process is marked by the common consumption of cultures that have been diffused by the Internet, popular culture media, and international travel. This has added to processes of commodity exchange and colonization, which have a longer history of carrying cultural meaning around the globe. The circulation of cultures enables individuals to partake in extended social relations that cross national and regional borders. The creation and expansion of such social relations is not merely observed on a material level: cultural globalization involves the formation of shared norms and knowledge with which people associate their individual and collective cultural identities. 

While cultural globalization has increased cross-cultural contacts, it has also been accompanied by a decrease in the uniqueness of once-isolated communities. Many argue it is a process of homogenization, and more specifically a process marked by the global domination of American culture at the expense and erasure of other cultures. Multiple anti-globalization movements have emerged out of this concern, protesting against globalization and giving new momentum to the defense of local uniqueness, individuality, and identity.

Cultural globalization

This image shows a McDonald's in Osaka, Japan, illustrating the "McDonaldization" of global society.

Political Globalization 

In general, globalization may ultimately reduce the importance of nation states. Supranational institutions such as the European Union, the WTO, the G8 ("Group of Eight"), and the International Criminal Court serve to replace or extend national functions to facilitate international agreement. Increasingly, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) influence public policy across national boundaries, including humanitarian aid and developmental efforts. As a response to globalization, some countries have embraced isolationist policies. For example, the North Korean government makes it very difficult for foreigners to enter the country and strictly monitors their activities when they do. Aid workers are excluded from places and regions the government does not wish them to enter, and citizens cannot freely leave the country.