Globalization as A Trend in The Development of The Modern World

Characteristics of Globalization

Most politicians and economists acknowledge globalization as a real and rapidly developing process permeating all facets of social life, though the concept today differs markedly from its understanding 30 to 40 years ago. This shift is primarily linked to the disintegration of the bipolar system. The collapse of the USSR diminished the isolation of former socialist countries, facilitating broader development of globalization processes. Currently, an American-centric perspective dominates global phenomena.

In general, globalization as a social phenomenon can be reflected through three lenses:

1. Socio-Political: Political globalization defines the role of states and other actors in a globalized world, exploring the prospects for establishing a global civil society characterized by shared legal principles and norms.
2. Socio-Economic: Economic globalization outlines the formation of global markets and the strategies of corporations and international financial-economic institutions, as well as the potential emergence of fundamentally new economic relations and types of economies.
3. Socio-Cultural: Cultural globalization identifies profound changes in cultural stereotypes due to recent scientific and technological innovations, addressing the prospects for intercultural dialogue.

Recently, foundational megatrends in the global civilizational process within the socio-cultural sphere have emerged:

1. a) Cultural Polarization;
   b) Cultural Assimilation;
   c) Cultural Hybridization;
   d) Cultural Isolation.
2. Cultural Polarization: This megatrend characterized much of the 20th century, marked by the conflict between two camps—capitalist and socialist. The principal mechanism of this polarization is the segmentation of the political and geo-economic world map, accompanied by the formation of stable military-political and economic regional alliances.
3. Cultural Assimilation: This concept posits that there is no alternative to "Westernization." The establishment of universal ("humanitarian") norms and rules in international relations is expanding.
4. Cultural Hybridization: This trend encompasses processes of transcultural convergence and the formation of translocal cultures—cultures of the diaspora, rather than traditionally localized ones striving for national-state identity. The world gradually transforms into a complex mosaic of translocal cultures, forming new cultural regions. Intensified communication and intercultural interactions, along with advancements in information technologies, promote the diversification of the myriad human cultures rather than their subsumption under a universal "global culture."
5. Cultural Isolation: The 20th century offers numerous examples of isolation and self-isolation among certain countries, regions, and political blocs ("sanitary borders" or the "iron curtain"). The sources of isolationist tendencies in the ensuing century will include cultural and religious fundamentalism, ecological, nationalist, and racist movements, and the rise of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that resort to measures such as socio-cultural autarky, restrictions on informational and humanitarian contacts, limitations on movement, and strict censorship.

Some Western authors emphasize that among all forms of globalization (economic, cultural, political, etc.), the most "advanced" is economic globalization.

Several factors have contributed to the formation of a global economy:

• Integration of financial markets;
• The telecommunications revolution, creating conditions for corporations to maintain constant contact with countries worldwide, forging agreements with partners in any corner of the globe;
• Expansion of the activities of transnational corporations, which possess substantial technological and financial resources and strategically place production globally to achieve maximum efficiency by utilizing inexpensive labor;
• The departure of transnational corporations from the Fordist system of labor organization towards a flexible labor utilization system that adapts to ongoing changes in the global economy to maintain competitive positions and capture new markets;
• Continuous growth in the involvement of developing countries in global trade and investment processes, as well as in the international division of labor;
• A sharp increase in economic interdependence among countries, to the extent that no nation can remain detached from the global economy.

Globalization is viewed as the dominant factor in the economic life of the world, dictating a new quality of the internationalization of the global economy. Economic globalization compels:

• Adaptation of economic institutions to new demands;
• A significant strengthening of the power of capital owners—investors, multinational companies, and global financial institutions;
• A recognition that it is an irreversible process that no state can resist;
• The "blurring" of economic boundaries between states;
• The formation of new international mechanisms for capital accumulation and movement.

According to Anthony Giddens, globalization is a consequence of modernity, which itself is a product of Western development. Globalization signifies a fundamental alteration of the world order, wherein national borders lose their significance due to the advancement of high technologies in mass culture. Some Western experts consider globalization to be the most fundamental challenge faced by history in recent times.

For Giddens, the emergence of globalization's characteristics and the evolution of this process are closely linked to the formation of contemporary society and the models of nations that reflexively respond to historical events. He perceives globalization as a direct outcome of modernization, the essence and manifestation of which he has examined in a series of works. While modernization extracts social relations from their context and situates them within broader spatial-temporal boundaries, globalization exponentially amplifies this tendency. In his recent works, Giddens portrays it as a complex, multi-causal process filled with contingencies and uncertainties, yielding unforeseen consequences.

Globalization is not a linear process; it develops in waves and has undergone multiple phases—from the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries and the establishment of Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, through capitalist colonization of the world, to the post-socialist period.

Globalization is a process unfolding not only at the state level but also at supranational tiers. This multifaceted phenomenon is thus carried by a plethora of agents: states, their coalitions, international organizations, and non-governmental entities. While the actors are numerous, they do not interact according to the rules of free competition. Even within their own territories, states, in this era of globalization, cease to be the singular entities authorized to exercise legitimate coercion for the sake of maintaining social order. Attempts by undemocratic regimes to impose uniform social standards on their citizens through self-isolation from other countries run counter to the currents of globalization, hindering and distorting them. Nevertheless, this does not halt the infiltration of certain values into the consciousness of individuals. Some scholars argue that the universality of the world can only be restored through a common accord, understood not merely as a value norm, but more broadly, as societal utility. We all reside in a dynamic, shifting world, not a ghetto. Thus, we cannot adopt a philosophy of “barbed wire.” Isolationism pertains to those who perceive themselves as different from others. However, the logic of globalization contradicts such an idea. In a mobile world, detachment from common political processes yields no positive outcomes. Under the pressures of globalization, even the once-closed state of Cuba could not withstand.

Mutual respect in the process of globalization has now become the paramount societal utility, as it gradually transforms into the fundamental condition for a new social contract and for coexistence in a world governed by the imperatives of globalization—namely, interdependence.

To assess the degree of individual states’ integration into the globalization process, an annual globalization ranking is published in the journal Foreign Policy. The ranking considers four main parameters:

• Economic Integration: The volume of international trade, investments, and various cross-border transactions.
• Personal Contacts: International travel, tourism, the volume of international phone calls, postal communications, and remittances.
• Technology: The number of Internet users and servers.
• Inclusion in International Politics: Participation in international organizations and the number of embassies.

In recent years, the list of the most globalized states has remained largely unchanged. Ireland continues to hold the position of the most globalized country, followed by Singapore and Switzerland (which has never fallen out of the top five). Other countries in the top twenty of globalized nations include, in order: the Netherlands, Finland, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Slovenia, and Malaysia.

Generally, discussions of globalization tend to focus solely on its economic and political aspects. However, its implications run much deeper and can transform not only all other dimensions of human life but also the essence of humanity itself. Here, the discussion must encompass the mass consciousness of the age of globalization.

Indeed, globalist consciousness, as a distinctive form of global social awareness, has produced stable stereotypes over the past two decades, collectively forming what may be termed globalist mythology. This amalgamation consists of contradictory and even mutually exclusive stereotypes, arising from both dominant (mainstream) and diverse oppositional and alternative forms of awareness and social movements that emerged in the early 1990s. Notably, Russian social consciousness, while highly heterogeneous, evidently leans towards the oppositional pole, especially given the increasingly palpable “wind of secession” in contemporary Russia. The clash between these two poles of globalist mythology has sparked a vigorous international discourse (the so-called global talk), during which the core postulates of the dominant mythology have been elucidated. According to these tenets, globalization is a process that is:

• Inevitable and fateful;
• Universalizing or leveling all differences—from economic to cultural;
• Equivalent to Westernization or Americanization;
• One-directional, that is, without alternatives;
• Erasing not only differences but also inequalities, while eliminating the sovereign “territorial” state.

In the last 10-15 years, a “new philosophy of globalization” has emerged, whose primary ideas can be summarized as follows:

1. Globalization coincides chronologically with modernization, thus extending back to the sixteenth century. It encompasses processes of economic systematization, the establishment and development of inter-state relations, and the emergence of a global culture or global consciousness. Over time, this process has taken root and is now experiencing its most rapid phase of development.
2. Globalization involves the systematic interpenetration of all individual social connections established on the planet. In the context of complete globalization, no single connection or complex of connections can remain isolated, as each systematically experiences the influence of others. This is especially true in territorial terms (that is, geographical borders lose their significance in the age of globalization). Globalization fosters the unification of human society.
3. Globalization encompasses the phenomenon of “compression.” While it is often said that “the planet is compressing” and “distance is vanishing,” this should be understood phenomenologically rather than literally. Globalization implies a phenomenological elimination of space and a generalization of time.
4. The phenomenology of globalization is reflexive. Inhabitants of the planet consciously orient themselves concerning the world as a whole.
5. Globalization signifies the end of both universalism and particularism. The earlier phase (of unaccelerated globalization) was characterized by divergences between spheres that employed general rational norms and those where the specificity of interpersonal interactions and individual qualities played a dominant role. Globalization “compresses” space and time, causing them to seemingly disappear: every individual, in any of their external connections, simultaneously presents both themselves and all of humanity.