globalisation Flashcards
What is globalisation?
Globalisation is the process of increasing interconnectivity between countries.
What is economic globalisation?
economic globalisation: the growth of TNCs, which have a global brand image and presence; the spreading of investment around the world; rapid growth in world trade
What is cultural globalisation?
unifying and diversifying; people using increasingly similar: food, clothes, music, values - many of which are ‘western’ in origin (from North America and Europe)
What is political globalisation?
spreading ideologies, global organisations (e.g. the UN), the dominance of western democracies in political and economic decision making; spreads the view that democratic, consumerist societies are the most ‘successful’
What is environmental globalisation?
agreements (Paris), pollution affecting other countries, species being spread to other countries; global warming is a global threat requires a global solution
What is demographic globalisation?
increasing migration and tourism makes populations more fluid and mixed
What is the widening and deepening of global connections?
Widening of connections: links to new places, often farther away.
Deepening of connections: number and type of connections increase, and volume of flows grows.
What is interdependence?
Globalisation increases interdependence
This means that the success of one place depends on the success of other places.
Economic problems in one country can quickly spread to its trading partner and quickly affect people in distant places.
In April 2011, staff at a Honda factory in Swindon had to work only two days a week due to a shortage of parts following the Japanese tsunami.
The German DAX (stock market) lost 1.2% within minutes after the tsunami.
What are flows?
Increase in flows of:
goods and services (including commodities)
products and commodities, that can be bought, and are often made or grown in other countries
capital
flows of money between people, banks, businesses and governments
people (including migrants and tourists)
information
e.g. data transferred between businesses and people, often using the internet
Steam trains (19th)
Faster steam trains replaced horse-drawn and canal transport.
1802: invented
1830s public railways (Liverpool and Manchester))
Jet aircraft (20th century)
Jet Aircraft
The Boeing 747 ‘jumbo jet’ introduced in the 1960s lowered the cost of international air travel, bring international tourism within the purchasing capabilities of the middle class.
They reduced travel time for passengers to hours, rather than days, replacing steam ships.
Containerisation (20th)
Reduced transport costs for goods by dramatically lowering costs of ‘break bulk cargo’ (products that have to be loaded individually)
less time spent when products change transport type, e.g. at a dock = more trade = cheaper
Dramatically sped up goods trade and reduced costs, making consumer goods cheaper.
Most goods are transported like this.
Ubiquitous, standardised metal/steel boxes quickly transferable from a ship to a lorry or railway. (the containers are inter-modal)
Process is easily mechanised; containers are unloaded by crane, increasingly automatically. In the past, cargo was loaded manually in crates or stacks.
Reduced labour costs as fewer dockworkers required to unload loose commodities or pack awkwardly shaped products into the hold.
Fewer losses from theft.
The world’s fleet if 9500 container ships can carry up to 18,000 twenty-foot shipping containers each.
Container ships are so efficient that the transport costs of moving an iPhone or television from China to the UK are less than £1.
Shipping cost reduced as fewer days are wasted queuing at a port waiting to unload.
Faster transport times increase the distance perishable products can be transported, e.g. cut flowers from Kenya, opening up more distant markets and reducing losses.
Electric telegraph (19th century)
The electric telegraph was the first long-distance instant communication technology (1830s). The Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable in the 1860’s replaced a 3 week boat journey with instant Morse Code messages.
Steam ships (19th)
Steam ships replaced sailing ships and increased speed and cargo capacity dramatically (1840s)
What is the shrinking world?
The physical distance between places remains unchanged, but new technologies reduce the time taken to transport goods/people/communicate information.
The process of time-space compression.
Time-space compression is an effect of increased connectivity with more distant place, and an effect of the shrinking world.
There is also more widespread knowledge about distant places, so they feel less exotic. The friction of distance has been reduced.
In the 1700s, the fastest transport was a three-masted frigate (HMS Dolphin) which took two years to navigate the globe.
In the 1930s, propeller aircraft (the Lockhead Vega) took 8 days.
In the 1990s jet aircraft (Concorde) took 31 hours.
Mobile phones (21st)
These have become common since their invention in the mid-1990s, even in many developing countries.
With smart phones, smart tablets and smart watches in the 2000s extended they information flows to locations beyond landline networks.
Reduced mobile phone costs expanded usage from an expensive business tool to an ubiquitous consumer product.
Used even in countries with a lack of communications infrastructure. By 2015, 70% of people in Africa owned a mobile phone.
Internet (21st)
Internet access became common from the mid 1990s, followed by fast broadband.
Close to 50% of the world’s population uses internet.
Broadband internet in the 1980s and 90s meant that large amounts of data could be moved quickly through cyberspace.
Social networks (21st)
Social networks and Skype allow people to communicate instantly and without charge (with an internet connection). In 2014, 5 billion Facebook ‘likes’ were registered each day.
The development of social media (Facebook 2006, Instagram 2010, WhatsApp 2010) enabled much cheaper communication between friends and family than landline telephone.
This has led to space-time compression, where the cost (time or money) of communicating over distance has fallen rapidly, so people can communicate regardless of distance.
Since 2003 Skype has allowed cheap, direct, face-to-face communication, allowing migrants to maintain stronger bonds with their distant family.
Economic banking (21st)
The rise of mobile phones means they can be used for economic banking, revolutionising life for individuals and businesses. In Kenya:
The equivalent of one third of the country’s GDP is sent through the M-Pesa system annually. This is a mobile phone service that allows credit to be directly transferred between phone users.
People in towns and cities use mobiles to make payments for utility bills and school fees.
In rural areas, fishermen and farmers use mobiles to check market prices before selling produce.
Women in rural areas can secure micro-loans, using their M-Pesa bills as proof they have a good credit record.
Electronic banking extends capital flows beyond the physical banking network
In-store barcode recording automatically orders a replacement from a distant supplier, reducing warehouse and wasted transport costs. .
E-banking allows migrants to transmit remittances of money back to their home countries.
It has been a huge benefit to businesses, since they can:
Keep in touch with all parts of their production, supply and sales network, locally and globally.
Transfer money and investments instantly.
Instantly analyse data on sales, employees and orders from anywhere within their business.
Fibre optic cables (21st)
Land-based and sub-sea fibre optic cables in the 2000s increased the speed and volume of data transmission through cyberspace, and allow instant, global communications.
More than 1 million kilometres of flexible undersea cables carry the world’s data.
Global positioning systems (GPS) use continuously broadcasting satellites as beacons to triangulate information.
Delivery vehicles can continuously locate and transmit their position whilst satellite navigation (SATNAV) systems reduce costs from vehicles getting lost.
Satellite-based television has meant that popular channels are available worldwide, in many languages.
Electronic banking extends capital flows beyond the physical banking network
economic effects of globalisation?
Globalisation allows economic specialisation where the country focusses on production of certain goods/services it can produce most efficiently, lowering production costs.
The focus of specialisation determined by the country’s mix of natural resources (land). people (labour) and technology (capital)
Specialisation and trade allows for an increase in global output and increases choice, raising quality of life.
Globalisation reduces self-sufficiency and increases interdependence - mutual reliance on inputs from other countries.
Increased complexity of global flows may reduce resilience as it increases vulnerability to shocks anywhere in the world, e.g. a natural disaster, economic recession, war, or political conflict.
