Professional Documents
Culture Documents
culture is insignificant. The flow of culture is mainly from the North to the South. In the last few
years the media owners of the West have shown interest in entering developing countries.
For example, Murdoch has opened TV channels (STAR News, STAR Movies and STAR Plus) in
India. Cultural globalisation has been facilitated by the information revolution, the spread of
satellite communication, telecommunication networks, information technology and the Internet
etc. This global flow of ideas, knowledge and values is likely to flatten out cultural differences
between nations, regions and individuals.
As this flow of culture is mainly from the centre to the periphery, from the North to the South,
and from the towns and cities to villages, it is the cultures of villages of poor countries which
will be the first to suffer erosion.
3. Political Globalisation:
Since long, efforts have been on to bring the whole world under one government. The League of
Nations and the UN have been the efforts in that direction. It is believed that the world under one
government will be safer and freer from conflicts: The UN has belied expectations, but a number
of regional organisations like European Union, ASEAN, APEC and SAARC, and multicultural
economic organisations such as WTO have come up.
The member-states remain sovereign, but through their obligations and commitments, they have,
to some extent, integrated themselves to the concerned international organisations and groupings.
GLOBALISATION
Linkages between countries are deepened
Recognizes no boundaries; sees the world as a
whole
All countries are on equal footing
A kind of socialist idea where all countries
receive equal benefits
INTERNATIONALISATION
Countries trade more
Recognizes the nation-state
Sees countries as developed and developing
and treats them differently
Countries benefit differently depending on how
well they can withstand the competition
Adam Smith suggested the non-interference of governments in markets so that each country
could produce the commodities in which they had a comparative advantage.
IMPACT AND RESPONSE TO GLOBALISATION
Industry and commerce There has been the expansion of free trade or trade
liberalization whereby tariffs and other barriers to trade have been removed. However,
developed countries may still subsidise their industries and institute tariffs but flood the
markets of developing countries with their goods.
Capital can be moved quickly to anywhere in the world facilitating FDI in many
countries.
A multilateral agency is one where many members participate on equal footing to achieve certain
goals by following devised procedures.
World Trade Organisation (formerly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
o Regulates trade in goods by overseeing the rules of international trade and
arbitrating disputes arising from those rules
o Its task is to remove all barriers or encumbrances of any kind to trade anywhere
in the world.
o Provides services such as telecommunications and banking
o The WTO has been accused of favouring TNCs and developed countries,
subverting its own goals of globalisation for internationalisation
International Monetary Fund
o Fosters global monetary cooperation
o Ensures financial stability worldwide
o Provides loans and technical assistance to expand trade and to promote exchange
stability and manage BOP problems
o Helps to control debt
o Gives advice on policies most likely to encourage stable exchange rates and
economic growth
o Oversees entire international monetary and financial system
o Solutions suggested by the IMF (structural adjustment policies) include the
following. These have resulted in unemployment, poverty, inflation and lack of
availability of good utilities and services.
Keeping interest rates high
Devaluing the currency
Reducing government spending in non-productive sectors
Increasing taxes
Privatizing many public corporations
World Bank (formerly International Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
o Provides finance for projects to promote development in the form of long-term
loans to developing countries
o Loans promote equity and productivity and are usually conditional on
improvement in some aspect of social life
o Changing definitions of development has changed the focus from economic
growth to include poverty reduction
o Endorses internationalisation of markets and trade liberalisation policies as the
path to economic development
o It has helped to boost economic growth but its contribution to human
development has been significantly less
Economic Partnership Agreement The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions are aimed at
safeguarding preferential access to European markets and promoting trade between the
two groupings and through trade development, sustainable growth and poverty
reduction.
The EPAs set out to help ACP countries integrate into the world economy and share in
the opportunities offered by globalisation.
For well over 30 years, exports from the ACP countries were given generous access to
the European market.
Yet preferential access failed to boost local economies and stimulate growth in ACP
countries. And the proportion of EU imports from ACP countries dropped from 7% to
3% of EU imports.
The EPAs allow for:
opened up EU markets fully and immediately (unilaterally by the EU since 1st January
2008), but allowed ACP countries 15 (and up to 25) years to open up to EU imports
while providing protection for the sensitive 20% of imports
provide scope for wide-ranging trade co-operation on areas such as services and
standards
are also designed to be drivers of change that will kick-start reform and help strengthen
rule of law in the economic field, thereby attracting foreign direct investment, so
helping to create a "virtuous circle" of growth
o Investment such as the purchasing of stocks can be done over the internet, thus
eliminating the middle man
o Goods can be produced more cheaply and in larger quantities, making them more
competitive on the world market
Ideologies
o Social preference for foreign products
o Gender
o Economic an unfettered economy is the engine of growth as economies will
specialise in those goods with which they have a comparative advantage
o Political capitalist economies try to compete on the world market
The IMF and World Bank are about lending money and giving technical advice. Poverty,
although still widespread, has reported significant reduction but countries cannot compete under
conditions of trade liberalization.