Updated: 10 November 1998
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Fred W. Riggs
ABSTRACT: Many critics have noted that "globalization" is a fuzzy buzzword that has recently burst into our vocabulary. It has many possible meanings any one of which one might have in mind when using this word. To determine empirically what some scholars are thinking about when they speak of globalization, I sent a questionnaire to all members of the International Sociological Association, inviting those who have written about globalization to send me a text that would indicate as clearly as possible what they were thinking about. On the basis of numerous responses, I created a small glossary of relevant concepts. To facilitate a ready understanding of the rather complex analysis offered here, readers may prefer to start by opening a set of slides with accompanying notes that were prepared for use at a session of the University of Hawaii Social Science seminar on Globalization.
Like "poverty," "justice," "democracy," or "mother," globalization is a word that shelters many overlapping and closely linked concepts, each of which may be quite useful and can fairly readily be defined by a simple text. In context, words like "globalization" can be used unambiguously and precisely, but without context indicators, they are necessarily ambiguous and possibly misleading. To simplify the task of specifying which of its possible meanings an author has in mind, it is useful to have available a list of more specific terms, often in the form of phrases or even neologisms and acronyms, that can be used to help one specify which concept is intended whenever such a shelter term is used.
If, for example, we distinguish between "historical" and "contemporary" globalization, we can indicate whether we are thinking of globalization as a long-term process (what Jerry Bentley thinks about) or as a recent development (per Deane Neubauer's presentation). Each discipline focuses on one aspect of a complex reality and may well link other aspects to it. For example, Economists focus on production/consumption, money, distribution, capital as key variables; Political Scientists focus on governance, peace and conflict, justice and order; Anthropologists and Sociologists look primarily at class and caste, social structures and pathologies, communities and groups. Disciplinary specialists may or may not point out how the aspects of a complex reality like globalization they focus on interact with and affect other aspects.
By using phrases like "economic globalization," "political g.", "social g.", "cultural g." etc. we can specify which facet of the subject is a focus of our attention. Other dimensions involve one's ideological assumptions or ontological paradigms, whether one sees globalization as a consequence or cause of events, what places in the world one concentrates on, and whether one is thinking mainly of individuals, groups, regions, or the whole planet. Surely all these postures overlap and affect each other. The ultimate goal of conceptual analysis is to enable us think more clearly about whatever we want to study, and to express ourselves in ways that will more easily be understood both by specialists and the general public. The paper on Globalization seeks to clarify and suggest appropriate terms to make the distinctions found in the texts collected from ISA members that employ this word -- as well as by the contributors to the UH/SS seminar on globalization. It is supported by a summary that includes information about the onomantic framework employed in this analysis.
NOTES: These are notes on slides relating to concepts of globalization (they may be viewed by clicking on the link at the end of each segment) which were prepared for use at the Seminar on Globalization, University of Hawaii, College of Social Sciences, Tuesday, September 29, 1998. They have been prepared on Power Point, for which I thank Harry Partika who installed the program for me, and Morris Featherman who helped me get started -- I have never used this program before so please excuse the blunders in this first experiment! Now view the first slide. Click here for the full set of slides.
A TERM LIKE GLOBALIZATION HAS MANY MEANINGS.
Consider that each of the overlapping circles represent one of these meanings, e.g., A, B, and C. Where they overlap two or more of these meanings may coincide. We have an overall impression of fuzziness when confronted by such words, but it is possible to disaggregate their various meanings and find unambiguous terms for each of them. However, when the context clearly shows which meaning is intended, the fuzzy word can be used unambiguously. Now view the second slide . A more detailed discussion of concept shelters can be found at: Shelters . The methodology used here is explained in an essay on Descriptive Terminology.
3.OUTLINE OF CATEGORIES
The concepts derived from an international project based on a questionnaire distributed to members of the International Sociological Association reveal 4 major categories:
Each of these categories includes several different concepts, as represented in the remaining slides. Now view the third slide. These are complementary dimensions that could be represented on a cube as shown in the "framework" figure on p.7 of my INTERCOCTA Glossary for Ethnicity (1985) -- copies are still available from the author. You may view a reproduction of this figure on Johann Stockinger's COCTA page.
4. TIME/SPACE
Time: The Chronological Context. Most social scientists have the "present" in mind -- some since the industrial revolution, but many refer only to the post-INTERNET period. By contrast, historians consider that globalization started a long time ago, and they may identify different periods and trace them to events, new technologies, or ideas.
Space: The Geographical Context. In a planetary perspective, globalization occurred after Columbus linked the Old and New worlds. Previously, globalization connected Africa, Asia and Europe going back to the Caravans that threaded their way across the deserts and the ships that sailed the Indian Ocean. However, in parochial world-systems like the Hawaiian Islands before Cook, globalization encompassed an extended island chain. Now view the fourth slide.
5.DIMENSIONS OF GLOBALIZATION
DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES: Each of the social sciences looks at a special aspect of the whole system of interdependent parts that constitutes our world system -- it's like viewers of a great house or city who find a window of opportunity and peer through it. What they see is quite real, but only part of the whole. No need to elaborate -- just think of each of our disciplines and ask what facet of reality they are looking at -- that, of course, is why we need an inter-disciplinary exercise to see how the parts constitute a whole. Meanwhile, each discipline constructs a concept of globalization that reflects its special point of view: Consider how it relates its focal concerns to the contemporary world system.
Now view the fifth slide.
6. CAUSE/EFFECT CYCLES
Causes have Consequences which affect Causes
We like to think about independent and dependent variables, leading to questions about what causes globalization and what are it consequences. We may call the former, globalizing, but we lack a term for the latter -- I think of it as globalating, but this neologism, to rhyme with "initiating" or "terminating" may not sit well -- what would you suggest? In a broad sense, continuous interaction means that consequence feed back to affect causes. Now view the sixth slide.
7.CIRCULAR CAUSATION
In this context, change lacks unilinear causes -- instead, it occurs when cause-effect circles generate what Gunnar Myrdal called positive (spread) effects or negative (backwash) effects. Globalization probably includes all these effects, but we may specify one or another aspect in context or by more precise terms. Viewed as a benign circle, we might see globalization as enhancing growth, new technology, extensive interest communities, and general welfare. However, we may equally view it as a vicious circle that produces poverty, destroys the environment, undermines health, and leads to criminal violence, ethnic conflict, and urban decay. Now view the seventh slide.
8. DENSITY OF INTERDEPENDENCE
THREADS: During the earliest stages of globalization, only a fragile thread linked distant partners in the exchange of goods over great distances -- A1. As globallization evolved, multiple threads overlapped, mingling trade with information and more complex interactions -- A2. In our day, the profusion of threads carried on the INTERNET, the mass media, the flow of capital, goods and people has reached unprecedented levels -- A3. In this perspective, the most distinct feature of globalization today is not so much its spacial expansion (it's been planetary for several hundred years) but rather, the proliferation of interacting threads that create a densely woven fabric of interdependence everywhere and at all social levels. We need to be able to think of globalization as a process of increasing density among interdependent global threads.
STRUCTURE OF CONFLICT: So long as global interactions were strung on a single thread, extensive conflict was impossible, but localized conflict, feuds between factions and clan rivalries could disrupt the flow -- B1. As state-building evolved and empires grew, political rivalries between armed polities made inter-state warfare the epitome of globalization -- B2. In today's world, the multiplication of threads, perhaps best symbolized by the spread of the INTERNET, has enmeshed the world in a way that makes inter-state wars, at least among great powers, obsolete -- but it generates a host of petty conflicts that proliferate in civil wars, terrorism, and localized conflicts all of which have global causes and repercussions. Sad to say we lack a good term for this present state of affairs which, I fear, will long endure. Privately, I use synarchy to talk about this phenomenon -- it's a neologism that links synthesis with anarchy. I cannot think of a better word to characterize the contemporary global system. Now view the eighth slide.
9.PERSPECTIVES
There are many ways to look at the world and they affect all the dimensions for understanding globalization outlined above. Perhaps they can be summarized under these three headings:
Inductive/deductive -- description vs. ideal types or models
Objective/subjective -- what's there vs. what we imagine or visualize Paradigmatic -- the conceptual framework that shapes our understanding.
Now view the ninth slide.
10. What's real and what we see
When one tries to describe the world in all its complexity, one may produce a chaotic melange or pastiche that reflects reality in an unintelligible way, but when one tries to make sense out of such impressions the result may be a purely imaginary model that captures only part of what we see, imposing our private conceptions upon it. We may think of the former approach as inductive and the latter as deductive. Somehow we need to find ways to link them. The world today is unimaginably complex and interdependent, creating a reality that truly defies our ability to "make sense" of it. Now view the tenth slide. [I apologize for the absence of a cute picture of a peering man whose view is blocked by someone else! The HTML coding program for Power Point rejected it!]
11. NORMATIVE EVALUATION
Almost everything we see can be evaluated positively or negatively, depending on how it affects us and the values we cherish. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of us see globalization as a horror to be stoutly resisted, while others find it wonderful and a welcome relief. No doubt, the reality is far more complex because it has many consequences, some of which we abhor and others we admire. Nevertheless, we need terms for these contrasting normative evaluations -- the good and the bad in globalization. Now view the eleventh slide.
12. PARADIGMS: WAYS OF SEEING
Implicit premises or models, often not articulated, predispose us to view the world, and especially globalization, in different ways. Four are identified here, but no doubt others can well be added. The patterns that I found in our texts suggests these possibilities:
Now view the twelfth slide.
13. DOCUMENTATION
Details concerning the project based on responses from sociologists around the world that have produced the findings reported here can be found on my Home Page . A link heading this page will take readers to the segment for globalization.
View the texts offered by respondents; and the names and addresses of contributors;
View also the full set of concepts deduced from these texts; the four main categories gleaned from them plus links to their explication;
A summary of criteria used to produce these categories; a classified list of terms for these concepts; and an alphabetical index for these terms.
View the thirteenth (bibliographic) slide; also, view all the slides as a set.
For an explanation of the onomantic approach used here, take a look at Descriptive Terminology. See also a set of related documents clickable at COCTA and at Onomantics.
Finally, click here for globalization Web Pages
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