Economic, Political, and Cultural Dimensions
Introduction
The term globalisation is one of the most commonly used terms in today’s context. This term denotes a process that indicates the growing interdependence of people around the world concerning the exchange of goods, services, values, and culture. However, the movement of people, cultural exchange, and trade has been an integral aspect of ancient cultures as well and therefore we may claim that transnational interactions are not exclusive to the modern world. In fact, in earlier times. We can observe that different civilisations conducted trade with each other and even shaped each other’s culture.
Globalisation is considered a process that has led to the economic and integration of the world into one single market. It is also regarded as a process that is characterised and movement of people across countries than ever before. It is the volume, scale, and speed of movement across borders that is specific to the contemporary nature of movements of goods, people, and ideas.
Nowadays, events in one place can impact the position of any other place or community both negatively and positively. For instance, the integration of financial markets is associated with shocks and risks, as much as with benefits of comparative advantage. We can observe during several instances that any economic shock in one country can impact the economy of other countries much adversely than ever before. Any war, change of regime, or change in economic policies can determine the economic conditions and policies of other countries.
Globalisation and Culture
First of all, we need to understand what we mean by the term culture? Culture is often defined as a way of life for a group of individuals or people, which comprises beliefs. attitudes, symbols, and the way people behave and think.
It is a term that refers to social norms, social behaviour, and socially transmitted behaviour patterns, of art, culture, beliefs, and values. Most importantly, we need to look at culture as something which is not static but which changes with time and varying social, economic, and political conditions.
We can see that no culture has ever remained static. The cultures that see around are always moulding. changing, and negotiating with various socio-economic and political elements. Similarly, culture has been shaped by recent trends in how people across the globe have interacted either due to development in technology, mode of transportation, or integration of the financial system.
Therefore, globalisation as a process is also characterised by its cultural dimensions and we will examine the cultural dimension of globalisation.
Cultural dimensions
The cultural dimensions of globalisation can be characterised as the expansion, movement, and intensification of diverse cultural influences over each other in the globe. However, we need to understand that globalisation and culture have interacted with each other in complex ways.
The cultural dimension of globalisation involves the exchange of ideas, values, shared culture, and even shared consumption patterns across cultures. At one level, it is considered to be a process that involves the exchange and sharing of cultures, while on the other hand it is also looked upon with skepticism. Several implications of globalisation over culture have been considered as an aspect of new-age colonialism.
New age colonialism, in which the developed and western nations have been able to sustain influence over the developing nations and post-colonial states not only through the market but also through culture. By moulding the cultural preferences, ideas, values, and even mode of thinking the west has been able to assure its dominance over the non-west or developing states.
We can observe that it is not just through the presence of the military but also through other means a country can exert its influence over the rest of the world. Scholars argue that the popularisation of western media, eating preferences, music, television channels have all played an instrumental role in shaping cultural preferences across the world. For instance, we have often heard of the term Mcdonaldization of society.
Counter globalisation
The counter globalisation or anti globalisation movements can be described as those social movements by the end of the twentieth century, which have expressed their opposition to the current nature of developments in the world. They are highly critical against the current market-driven economy, the globalised neoliberal order majorly thriving on corporate power and influence. Such movements criticise the capitalist order and seek to explore alternate anti-capitalist globalised relationships.