GLOBALIZATION

Globalization

Globalization

Introduction

Globalization is a term that has, in many instances, come to replace the older and no less complex notion of “development.” In fact, globalization, has replaced the term development as the new action word of contemporary international governance discourse. Not simply a term that describes an inevitable process that is shaping the modern world, globalization, when conflated with development, is a meta-policy guiding the way to social and economic well-being in the global community.

Discussion and Analysis

Globalization is an inconsistent concept, and definitions of it abound. However, most anthropologists agree that, experientially, globalization refers to a reorganization of time and space in which many movements of peoples, things, and ideas throughout much of the world have become increasingly faster and effortless. Spatially and temporally, cities and towns, individuals and groups, institutions and governments have become linked in ways that are fundamentally new in many regards, especially in terms of the potential speed of interactions among them. Examples of these interactions are myriad: The click of a mouse button on a Wall Street computer can have immediate financial effects thousands of miles away on another continent and events like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or footage of the 2005 tsunami in southern Asia can be televised internationally, whereby millions of viewers interpret the same images concurrently (Hobsbawm, 2008).

Globalization and Citizenship

Citizenship is a status, or social and legal recognition for a person has rights and duties by membership in a community often territorial and cultural base. The "citizens" are equal among themselves and in the theory citizens can distinguish between first, second, etc.. In the same territory, subject to the same laws, everyone must be equal. The public accepts the difference, not inequality. Living in the city requires a minimum of guidelines common and tolerance for diversity. Without equality, at least formally, this commitment is not possible.

Globalization and the Decline of Citizenship

Globalization refers to processes of growing worldwide interconnectedness such that events and decisions in one region of the world can come to have significant consequences for distant communities. It is expressed in, amongst other things, the emergence of a single global capitalist economy in which webs of finance, production and trade bind together the economic fate of nations. As the current financial crisis (2008/2009) demonstrates, in a highly integrated world economy few governments are able to insulate their citizens from the pernicious consequences of global market forces.

Emerging social issues

In recent decades the transformations of labor market, increasing unemployment, the informal, the labor flexibility, the fall in revenues in a growing number of households - triggered a process of social exclusion that affects a growing number of population living mainly in large cities. Process which, in turn, affect the appearance of the city as evidenced by the socio-spatial segmentation is now seen in major Latin American cities. Undoubtedly, it is the local government the most suitable place for their proximity and ability to grasp the variety of risks which the population is exposed and, therefore, to produce ...