Effect of Globalization on the Governance of Space
Table of Contents
Introduction
Globalization can be seen as a way of integrating different nations to work as a single institution. Before 1945, nations were much independent and operated on their schedule with most of the goods and services being local. The foreign culture was not appreciated but rather seen as naive and archaic (Islam & Army 2003). Local trade was already established, and international trade was scaling. The technology and literacy advanced, different countries in the world linked, and international relations intensified. Different nations formed trade and social organizations that acted as a socializing ground for different persons from various ethnic groups. There was a need to break the geographical barriers, and the world opened up to different ideas and ideologies with the help of technology.
Different nations are now in close relations. It is not a surprise to visit a Super Store of Dubai and find that all the properties sold there are imported from other nations. Only a small percentage of the commodities in the store are manufactured in the United Arab Emirates. Many electronic appliances may be from Malaysia, phones from India, and fruits from Pakistan. This situation is not confined to the UAE; many nations also trade mostly imported goods from other countries.
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Generally, globalization has affected three areas: social, economic and political organization of the world. Many researchers view globalization as a replacement of the cold war and as more powerful than anticipated. It has broken the cultural barriers and made the world like a small village (Hanspeter & Prof 2013). As time passes by, globalization becomes a stronger and compulsory tool that no one can resist. Nations are no longer limited by their political territories but by the trade corporations in which they are involved.
Globalization has also impacted culture and sports. Through interactions, people from different ethnic groups have appreciated each other’s culture and borrowed from each other some practices. That has made the world a smaller global village where everyone feels comfortable irrespective of their place of residence or ethnic background. This paper shows how globalization has influenced the economic, political and social spaces in their governance.
Globalization and Economic Space
One of the major areas of influence of globalization is the economic sector. Dating back to the past decades, trade was localized and territorial. Goods and services generated locally did not find a way out to other nations and were consumed locally. Many factors contributed to this like poor infrastructure, lack of exposure, low-quality goods, and strict rules of export and import. After the industrial revolution has spread in many nations, goods were produced in a surplus, and there was the need to expand trade relations with the neighboring nations (Howard 2010). This bilateral trade relation grew with time into globalization was rapidly gaining root and spreading at an alarming rate. With time, trade became a dominant means of interaction among nations. Kingdoms became powerful due to trade that also led to the colonization of weaker nations in an attempt to exploit their untapped resources.
As trade intensified in the world, globalization took root and trade corporations have become more powerful than even the political institutions. The main reason was that man could not be separated from the economic activities, and trade has become a mandatory activity among nations. As globalization is trying to link different nations into one institution and advancement of technology, global integration is increasing and nations are working extra hand to make sure that they are not left out in the advancement of trade and globalization. Different entrepreneurship programs, diplomatic trade talks, bilateral trade talks, regional trade agreements, and international trade agreements are signed daily to enhance trade relations.
Such measures to encourage trade relations among nations have made the territorial borders invisible. Members of a certain trade union can import or export goods for free or at a subsidized cost as compared to non-members. That has made members of a certain regional trade union be like one nation due to their trade relations. For a successful economic relation among nations, a couple of conditions should be agreed upon (Schmidt & Hersh 2000). The flow of capital, reduction of obstacles, the mobility of workforce, and unrestricted movement of services and goods need to be assured for a smooth and successful economic interaction.
Globalization has enhanced and fostered economic relations among nations around the globe. Due to this phenomenon, countries have embraced the importance of economic cooperation and appreciated its importance in the growth of economy.
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A huge number of companies have been affected by globalization. For instance, approximately 30 percent of gross national product (GNP) in Canada is dependent on exports. On that note, for Canada to keep up with its high standards of living, its companies must develop strategies that necessitate more markets except for domestic ones. Due to this, Canadian exports are of greater importance than the local market. Other companies in Belgium and Hong Kong have small local markets; thus, it is compulsory for them to export to keep up with the high standards of living. In some scenarios, what a country is exporting may be imported but a little value added to its export (Christensen, Jansson & Christensen 2011). As for the countries that highly depend on exports and imports, globalization came to their aid and had helped them maintain economy.
Contemporary trends of economic globalization are connected with relationships between markets and states. Those trends between trade partners have generated strong enduring webs that make the economic fates of members intimately connected. Such strong webs have been enhanced by financial liberalization, and that has made private financial sectors dominant authoritative actors on the financial arena bringing about the question of economic sovereignty and state power.
In conjunction with financial integration, the functioning of multinational companies has integrated national and domestic local economies into regional and global production networks. Such measures have made national economies not to act as autonomous system of wealth accumulation since geographical national borders no longer hinder the operation of trade unions (Jussila, Majoral, Cravidão & 2001). It has now become hard to sustain the distinction between worldwide economic activity and domestic economic activities. Economic globalization has brought about a unified world for elites, but the division is clear in nations and regions as the worldwide workforce is segmented, within the poor and the rich, viewing them as losers and winners.
Political Globalization
Globalization has influenced the political system of the world as mentioned earlier in the sense of creating a borderless world. Two major transformations have molded the constitution of the contemporary political arena. The first one is the development of territory-based political societies. The second one did not replace the first by any means but broke all the links between political power and geography. A couple of developments led to the changes.
At the beginning, there was the institutionalization of a weak and fragile system of multilayered regional and global governance. In the early twentieth century, there were thirty-seven intergovernmental organizations (IGOs); at the end of the century, about 300 were offering important regional or global goods. Such a system created a healthy ground for political co-ordination among governments, transnational and intergovernmental agencies with a sole purpose of implementing transnational or global rules and managing border problems. This system, nevertheless, offered a breeding ground of a global polity or new opportunities as compared to what globalization promoted.
Moreover, there has been an important alteration in the mode and elements of international law. There has been a need to protect citizens against the violation of human rights, environmental issues, which upheld the cosmopolitan law. Cosmopolitan law delimits individual state’s political power. Through globalization, such laws have spread to other parts of the world. There has been a rapid growth in the private commercial and international law. Due to these developments, legal scholars have been encouraged the shift from a monistic view to a polycentric conception of law.
The polycentric conception of law has made the world a smaller village and enhanced globalization in the sense that any law made in any country of the world affects the whole humanity despite different constitutions. That is due to the close relationships built by globalization. Leaders have to work in conjunction with each other to implement laws due to the unified world. Citizens and governments have been embedded in complex networks and pillars of global and regional governance; they are now subject to current loci of authority below, above, and alongside the nation. In general, political community and political space are no longer confined to the national territory or state governments and, therefore, cannot be regarded as masters of their fate or that of its citizens. That does not imply that state governments or country sovereignty have been sabotaged by political globalization; contrary to opinions by many hyper-globalists, nations are not in decline.
Globalization and the Transformation of Political Space
In the contemporary globalization, the transformation of political power is characterized by the re-articulation of their functions and roles. They are reconstituted and re-embedded at the converging point of regionalising and globalizing systems and networks. The impact of globalization on the political arena neither weakens the state’s sovereignty nor makes it a homogenous one in that all the state powers are exercised in a more globalized manner.
The impact of globalization is intervened by a nation’s position in the military, global and economic hierarchies as well as its political and economic structures and societal methods for managing, contesting or improving globalizing semantics. While for many hyper-globalizers globalization is linked with the limits to the erosion and diminution of state powers, the positive transformation here is crucial of uprising political fatalism. Contemporary globalization has triggered and created a fertile ground of healthy politicization of a growing array of different spheres in the society. Also, it has brought about the growth of networks of political surveillance, mobilization, regulatory activity, and decision-making that surpasses states’ political power. In general, globalization does not bring to an end the old politics or old state ways but signals the continuity of politics in new dimensions that are compatible to the current trends like the change in technology and the way of governance.
One cannot overlook the fact that communities are in the process of transformation. At the center of these transformations lies the growth and development of trans-border political problems and issues that corrode clear laid distinctions between foreign and domestic affairs, external questions, and domestic politics. With the development of trans-border political systems, political space for the growth and practicing effective rule and transparency of political sovereignty ceases to be confined to a state’s territory (Sorrells 2013). Thus, the fate of a single community becomes the fate of a larger community.
Europe is a victim of such a condition as the development of Europe has raised a lot of discussions not only concerning its effect on the West but also all other countries who are partners with Europe like South Korea and Japan. These nations should be alert on the emerging issues like immigration, AIDS, and everything related to security, peace, and prosperity; such issues will spread to other nations.
Globalization and Social Space
Globalization has also greatly affected the social space. The current trend of social life cannot be compared with the life in the past decade. In the past, there was no advanced technology, and interaction was mainly face-to-face or in the form of letters that took time to get to the recipient. Technology has linked the whole world and made communication easier with the invention of the internet, telephone, television, and micro-computers. People can now interact with each other from any point of the world.
First, analysts connect globalization with deterritorialization due to the variety of social practices taking place irrespective of the location of participants. Global events happen through telecommunication, audiovisual media, digital computers, rocketry everywhere and anywhere in the world. Although physical presence remains crucial in many sectors like agriculture, business persons in different parts of the world involved in seminars and meetings use electronic media at the comfort of their homes. The Internet offers an opportunity to interact instantaneously with one another despite the great distances between people. Globalization brings a new sense of non-territorial social activities.
Second, it is important to mention the current theorists’ conception of globalization as a link to the development of social interconnectedness between different political and geographical boundaries. Although there is internet inequality among people in different areas, the principle mean of accessing data is through cyberspace. Studying has been made easier due to online learning. Students from remote geographical areas converge through the internet and acquire similar education. Such efforts have made education cost go down with a huge magnitude and opened opportunities to many learners. The demerits of distant interactions and studies are that they have less influence as compared to geographical ones, especially when there is a practical work to be handled in class.
Third, globalization comes along with the speed of a social task. Interconnectedness and deterritorialization may seem spatial in nature in the early stages (Schattle 2012). As seen it was previously, the introduction of high-speed transportation, information technologies, and communication assists a lot in the linking of vast geographical distances and territorial boundaries. Uniting through globalization is dependent on how fast information is conveyed. High-speed technology has positively influenced the human affairs by speeding every activity from sending mails to online seminars and meetings.
Globalization is a long-term process as seen in the traditional practices, but in the recent decades it has taken a rapid change due to advanced technology and the nature of the competitive market. Innovations have generated brilliant possibilities for instantaneousness and simultaneity. The Internet has become part of the human race (Kelly 2001). That has in some ways affected the social lives of human beings since physical relations are not enhanced, and the social life of a person is dormant especially speaking about young children. To some extent, there should be a limit on how much people interact virtually, and physical presence should be encouraged once in a while.
Sporting and cultural integration has been enhanced by globalization. The formation of different organizations promote culture and sports like Olympics, Common Wealth games among other festivities that promote culture (Rosow & George 2015). Through such forums, people from different ethnic backgrounds have mingled, exchanged ideas, and even borrowed each other’s cultural practices. Globalization becomes wide and a crucial element for positive ethnicity and culture integration.
The issue of immigration also has been enhanced through globalization. During the past decades, immigration was not an easy process but due to globalization and cultural integration, a lot of people have migrated and settled safely in a foreign land being assured of security and protection against discrimination. International integration, therefore, is promoted as well as unity and peaceful co-existence among different ethnic groups.
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From such recreational activity like sports, athletes have acquired connections and employed on contract or even became permanent residents to represent foreign countries in different international forums. Globalization is opening doors that political or military arenas could open and creating a peaceful world where everybody becomes somebody. It remains the responsibility of the government to make its citizens connected socially to the current trends by availing the necessary tools like computers and electricity.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident from this paper that globalization is rapidly taking roots in the social, economic and political lives of people. Despite the vast speculation of theorists, it is beneficial to incorporate globalization. Economically, the business world is growing, and there is a need to interact with other business people for new ideas and the market for their services and goods. Such interactions will create competition and thus improve the quality of goods and services. Globalization will also break monotony as the border barriers are eliminated and goods can be exported or imported with less or no charges. The formation of trade unions and regional trade has enhanced healthy trade relations and created mutual markets. For example, Common Wealth Organization has created a productive ground for trade and interaction of its membership countries.
Politically, globalization does not threaten the political system or diminish it. On the contrary, it incorporates new ideas in the governance system and protects the rights of its citizens. Through globalization, different states can appreciate other states’ rule of law, incorporate the positive side of it, and act as a watchdog to vices that violate human rights. With such a mind, the political arena will transform smoothly. The political view of globalization will help manage the new borderless territories, and international integration will be enhanced. Globalization has also favoured the judicial system as criminal cases are easier to handle by referring to the previous judgments made in similar cases with the help of internet and books.
Socially, globalization has brought a tremendous change in the way of living of people. With the help of high-speed technology like the internet, people communicate with each other from any corner of the world including space. The education system has changed as willing people can enrol for degrees based on distance learning thus cutting the cost of learning by a big margin. Cultural integration and appreciation has been enhanced in that people participate in different sporting activities, and thus borrowing of cultural elements is promoted. There is a need to control the technology, and government should come up with programs to monitor the usage of technology so that human rights are not violated. That should include age restrictions concerning the access to some sites to avoid child abuse and poor character among children. Globalization should be promoted and incorporated into the society with a proper monitoring since globalization cannot be suppressed as it is continuously growing.