Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. It can be attributed to a series of factors, including the reduction of barriers to international trade, the liberalization of capital movements, the development of transportation infrastructure, and the advancement of information and communication technologies. The term globalization first appeared in the early 20th century, but came into popular use in the 1990s to describe the growing international connectivity of the post–Cold War world. Large-scale globalization began in the 1820s, and in the late 19th century and early 20th century drove a rapid expansion in the connectivity of the world's economies and cultures. The origins of globalization can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries, a period marked by significant advancements in transportation and communication technologies following the Industrial Revolution. These developments increased global interactions, supporting the growth of international trade and the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and cultures. Between 1990 and 2010, globalization progressed rapidly, driven by the information and communication technology revolution that lowered communication costs, along with trade liberalization and the shift of manufacturing operations to emerging economies (particularly China). Academic literature commonly divides globalization into three major areas: economic globalization, cultural globalization, and political globalization.
Proponents of globalization point to economic growth and broader societal development as benefits, while opponents claim globalizing processes are detrimental to social well-being due to ethnocentrism, environmental consequences, and other potential drawbacks.
Etymology and usage The word globalization was used in the English language as early as the 1930s, but only ever in the context of education, and the term failed to gain traction. Over the next few decades, the term was occasionally used by other scholars and media, but it was not clearly defined. One of the first uses of a term resembling the more common meaning and usage of the modern word was by French economist François Perroux in his essays from the early 1960s (in his French works he used the similar yet distinct term mondialisation, translated as mundialization). Theodore Levitt is sometimes inaccurately cited as having invented the term in the mid-1980s, although he can more confidently be credited with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream business audience during that time. Though often treated as synonyms, in French, globalization is seen as a stage following mondialisation, a stage that implies the dissolution of national identities and the abolishment of borders within the world network of economic exchanges. Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations. Its antecedents date back to the great movements of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onward. In 1848, Karl Marx noticed the increasing level of national interdependence brought on by capitalism, and predicted the universal character of the modern world society. He states:
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. ... In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. Sociologists Martin Albrow and Elizabeth King define globalization as "all those processes by which the people of the world are incorporated into a single world society." In The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens writes: "Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa." In 1992, Roland Robertson, professor of sociology at the University of Aberdeen and an early writer in the field, described globalization as "the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole." In Global Transformations, David Held and his co-writers state:
Although in its simplistic sense globalization refers to the widening, deepening and speeding up of global interconnection, such a definition begs further elaboration. ... Globalization can be on a continuum with the local, national and regional. At one end of the continuum lie social and economic relations and networks which are organized on a local and/or national basis; at the other end lie social and economic relations and networks which crystallize on the wider scale of regional and global interactions. Globalization can refer to those spatial-temporal processes of change which underpin a transformation in the organization of human affairs by linking together and expanding human activity across regions and continents. Without reference to such expansive spatial connections, there can be no clear or coherent formulation of this term. ... A satisfactory definition of globalization must capture each of these elements: extensity (stretching), intensity, velocity and impact. Held and his co-writers' definition of globalization in that same book as "transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions—assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact—generating transcontinental or inter-regional flows" was called "probably the most widely-cited definition" in the 2014 DHL Global Connectiveness Index. Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson, in his book The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization, states that globalization:
...is the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world. Paul James defines globalization with a more direct and historically contextualized emphasis:
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