Globalization

Top-left: showing early migration patterns of humans across the globe as part of the history of globalization. Top-right: the Namban ship carrying Europeans to trade with Japan. Middle-left: the headquarters of the United Nations in international territory within Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Middle-right: a branch of the American superstore Walmart, the largest company in the world by revenue as of 2021, in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Bottom: a map of undersea cable connections around the African continent to and from Europe, Asia, and across the Atlantic Ocean.

Part of a series on
Sociology
History Outline Index
Key themes Society Globalization Human behavior Human environmental impact Identity Industrial revolutions 3 / 4 / 5 Popularity Social complexity Social environment Social equality Social equity Social power Social stratification Social structure Social cycle theory
Perspectives Conflict theory Critical theory Structural functionalism Positivism Social constructionism Social darwinism Symbolic interactionism
Branches Aging Architecture Art Astrosociology Body Criminology Consciousness Culture Death Demography Deviance Disaster Economic Education Emotion (Jealousy) Environmental Family Feminist Fiscal Food Gender Generations Health Historical Immigration Industrial Internet Jewry Knowledge Language Law Leisure Literature Marxist Mathematic Medical Military Music Peace, war, and social conflict Philosophy Political Public Punishment Race and ethnicity Religion Rural Science (History of science) Social movements Social psychology Sociocybernetics Sociology Space Sport Technology Terrorism Urban Utopian Victimology Visual
Methods Quantitative Qualitative Comparative Computational Ethnographic Conversation analysis Historical Interview Mathematical Network analysis Social experiment Survey
Major theorists 1700s: Comte · Sieyès 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias 1900s: Fromm · Adorno · Gehlen · Aron · Merton · Nisbet · Mills · Bell · Schoeck · Goffman · Bauman · Foucault · Luhmann · Habermas · Baudrillard · Bourdieu · Giddens
Lists Bibliography Terminology Journals Organizations People Timeline By country
Society portal
v t e

Globalization (North American spelling; also Oxford spelling [UK]) or globalisation (non-Oxford British spelling; see spelling differences) is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide.^[1] The term globalization first appeared in the early 20th century (supplanting an earlier French term mondialisation), developed its current meaning sometime in the second half of the 20th century, and came into popular use in the 1990s to describe the unprecedented international connectivity of the post–Cold War world.^[2] Its origins can be traced back to 18th and 19th centuries due to advances in transportation and communications technology. This increase in global interactions has caused a growth in international trade and the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and culture. Globalization is primarily an economic process of interaction and integration that is associated with social and cultural aspects. However, disputes and international diplomacy are also large parts of the history of globalization, and of modern globalization.

Economically, globalization involves goods, services, data, technology, and the economic resources of capital.^[3] The expansion of global markets liberalizes the economic activities of the exchange of goods and funds. Removal of cross-border trade barriers has made the formation of global markets more feasible.^[4] Advances in transportation, like the steam locomotive, steamship, jet engine, and container ships, and developments in telecommunication infrastructure such as the telegraph, the Internet, mobile phones, and smartphones, have been major factors in globalization and have generated further interdependence of economic and cultural activities around the globe.^[5][6][7]

Though many scholars place the origins of globalization in modern times, others trace its history to long before the European Age of Discovery and voyages to the New World, and some even to the third millennium BCE.^[8] 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.^[9] The term global city was subsequently popularized by sociologist Saskia Sassen in her work The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991).^[10]

In 2000, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic aspects of globalization: trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movement of people, and the dissemination of knowledge.^[11] Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business and work organization, economics, sociocultural resources, and the natural environment. Academic literature commonly divides globalization into three major areas: economic globalization, cultural globalization, and political globalization.^[12]

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.^[13][14]

Between 1990 and 2010, globalisation progressed rapidly, driven by the information and communication technology revolution that lowered communication costs, along with trade liberalisation and the shift of manufacturing operations to emerging economies (particularly China). ^[15][16][17]