Critical Review of Peter Dickens' Global Shift: Mapping The Changing Contours of the World Economy When the term “Globalization” is discussed, most academics, scholars, professionals and intellectuals attempt to define and interpret it in a summarized fashion. My main concern with this approach is that one cannot and should not define a process that altered decades of history and continues to, in less than 30 words. Global Shift is a book with remarkable insight. Peter Dicken rather than attempting to define the commonly misused word, explains Globalization in a clear and logical fashion, which interconnects numerous views. Dicken takes full advantage of his position to write and identify the imperative changes of political, economic, social, and technological dimensions of globalization. The case studies and examples in his book support key theoretical arguments; but the primary deficiency is it doesn’t have real life examples that elaborate on the theories. The book’s youngest audiences are undergraduates, and it is intended to educate and guide them towards the true meaning of globalization. No matter how explicate the theory is, it is very important to support it with specific examples. In chapter one Dicken points out “There is real danger of resource exhaustion in specific areas…geopolitical complication that access to localized resource (like oil, for example) may be restricted from time to time by states within whose territory it is located.”(Dicken2007 p.25) Imbedding an example such as “When the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo removed about 25% of the worlds daily crude oil from the market ─ oil prices increased significantly.” (McPherson) brings additional insight and understanding to a significant issue or event. Dicken’s writing style doesn’t emphasize on examples. They are the cornerstone of good reasoning, drawing pictures and allowing the reader to relate and receive an enhanced view of his arguments. Throughout the chapters assigned, Dicken focuses on the patterns and processes of global shifts, on the forms produced by the globalization of economic activities and on the forces producing those forms. He builds his arguments around three interconnected processes, which in his view are the reasons for reshaping the global economic map. Those are Transnational Corporations (“TNC”), States, and Technology. Transnational Corporations - State Dicken believes that most TNCs are capitalist enterprises driven by profit. He argues that they are the primary movers and shapers of the global economy with the power to easily control or coordinate production networks across the world. In chapter four Dicken challenges a view that with time TNCs are going to abandon their country of origin, and take over the smaller weaker firms.
Ritze, George, and Zeynep Atalay. Readings in Globalization: Key Concepts and Major Debates. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
John Baylis et al. (2011) comments on how $2 trillion is exchanged in the foreign market exchange every single day, this exchange goes on between transnational corporations. A transnational corporation has its headquarters in one country and operates partially or wholly owned subsidiaries in one or more other countries an example of a transnational corporation would be Google, whose main headquarters are in Mountain View California but they have multiple offices around the world such as Dublin. Huge transnational corporations (TNCs hereafter) estimated to account for one quarter to one third of all world output, 70% of all of the world’s trade and over 80% of the world’s investment. These figures given are proof that these transnational corporations are the key figure in the world’s economy that controls the location and distribution of all economic and technological resources the world provides.
As Americans we have to start to comprehend that the world around us is changing technologically, politically, and economically. In “The Last Superpower” an excerpt from the book The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria published in 2008. Zakaria emphasizes on these changes. Thomas Friedman the author of “The World is Flat” a piece from the book The World is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century published in 2005 also emphasizes on the same changes currently happening in the world. Zakaria and Friedman define these changes as globalization. The obvious common ground shared by both authors is their representation of globalization and the effects that it has and will continue to have on modern life. In contrast to sharing the same main topic both authors take a drastically different approach on how the relay their information to the audience. The differences displayed are mainly due to their personal and educational backgrounds, definitions of globalization as well as the individual writing styles of each author.
Capitalism is the engine driving globalization. Therefore, the development of capitalism — from the age of mercantilism to today’s neoliberalism — is reflected in the way globalization has unfolded. Since the rise of mercantile capitalism in the 1500’s, the desire for profit has intensified the spread of people, commodities, ideas, images, culture, and capital across the globe. This process of global integration has brought (often by force) non-capitalist economies under the all powerful system of world capitalism that guides our lives today (Robbins 68).
Source one is an excerpt from the book called “Transnational Corporations: Knitting the world together”. This book was published in 2004 and the author is Keith Suter, a futurist. He believes that transnational corporations are now the main global economic force as they eroded the national market. He deems that due to transnational companies the world is now involved in one global market. He views transnational companies as a definite source of economic globalization. Transnational companies did not only bring jobs to less developed country but it also stimulated the economy of that country giving them motivation. Transnational companies had given less developed country a better quality of life and well-being. There are some critics about transnational companies but transnational company had given us a way to make our world more globally connected as what Keith Suter would agree upon.
[3] Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (1999). Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture. California: Stanford University Press
Sassen, S. (1998). Globalization and its Discontents. In G. Bridge, & S. Watson (Ed.). The Blackwell City Reader (pp. 161-170). Oxford, U: Blackwell Publishing.
Many historians and sociologists have identified a transformation in the economic processes of the world and society in recent times. There has been an extensive increase in developments in technology and the economy as a whole in the twentieth century. Globalization has been recognized as a new age in which the world has developed into what Giddens identifies to be a “single social system” (Anthony Giddens: 1993 ‘Sociology’ pg 528), due to the rise of interdependence of various countries on one another, therefore affecting practically everyone within society.
The most condemning argument against globalization is certainly the fact that our world’s oil resources are quickly and irreversibly depleting. Oil is integral to globalization as it is the international fuel of transportation and international transportation is the key to globalization. Globalization is essentially the exchange of resources between global economies, so it is inevitable that globalization will cease to exist if countries cannot afford to exchange their resources. For instance, the reason many of the goods in North America are produced in countries like China is because developing countries have a human resource advantage. Chinese companies can pay their workers a fraction of what North American workers are paid to produce the same goods, thus leading to cheaper prices for North American businesses when purchasing the goods. The exchange of goods globally is built upon importers receiving cheaper prices than what they would pay at home, but the cheaper price o...
Following the Great Recession, the world has been facing complex global transformations. Dani Rodrik’s “The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy” portrays the challenges of the implications that our current model of globalization relies upon. Rodrik’s work reveals both the implications and connections of the relationships between markets, the states, and globalization in the currently changing world. Throughout the book, Rodrik argues the validity of five key points: markets require regulatory institutions, such institutions take on a variety of forms, societies should orient their market-supporting institutions to their own unique needs, markets that are responsive to democracy can avoid institutional convergence, and a world that is responsive to democracy will not reach full globalization. This book has made me question the long term sustainability of the already evolving economic globalization process. Rodrik explains that the process of globalization must be managed so that the entire world can benefit.
An outstanding mechanism frequently used to interpret ‘Globalization’ is the ‘World Economy’. Back to the colonial age, the coinstantaneous behaviors of worldwide capitals and energy resources flowed from colonies to western countries has been regarded as the rudiment of the economic geography (Jürgen and Niles, 2005). Nowadays, the global economy was dominated by transnational corporations and banking institutions mostly located in developed countries. However, it is apparently that countries with higher level of comprehensive national strength are eager for a bigger market to dump surplus domestic produce and allocate energy resources in a global scale, thus leads to a world economic integration. This module was supported by several historical globalists (Paul Hirst, Grahame Thompson and Deepak Nayyer) ‘their position is that globalization is nothing new but more fashionable and exaggerate, a tremendous amount of internationalization of money and trade in earlier periods is hardly less than today.’ (Frans J Schuurman 2001:64).
...o we can achieve our dreams in life: “we are now living in a world where time and space don’t matter anymore” just like J.Mittleman said. Globalization as we just learned is relative, whether it’s an opportunity or an exploitation depends on where you sit and how you look at the world. Kent, J., Kinetz, E. & Whehrfritz, G. Newsweek. Bottom of the barrel. - The dark side of globalization (2008/March24). David, P. Falling of The Edge, Travels through the Dark Heart of Globalization..Nov 2008. (p62)
Globalization can briefly be defined as ‘something’ that affects and changes the traditional arrangements of the state system. It is a term that directly implies change and therefore is a continuos process over a long period of time as compared to quickly changing into a wanted or desir...
Stiglitz, Joseph (2005), “The Overselling of Globalization,” in Bradley A. Thayer, Nuray V. Ibrayomova (eds.), Debates in International Relations (New York: Longman), 86.
In the recent years globalization has begun to appear as one of the most predominant issues in the world. The term ‘is generally used when discussing the technology and advances in an assortment of areas including, but not limited to, everything from technology to capital. The main aspects that comprise globalization are debatable. Throughout this essay, globalization will be explored as a recent social change in our society as it relates to incorporating economic relations and incorporations political relations around the world, despite the fact that this change is often portrayed as a problematic and unequal one of the restrictions of mobile subjects and connectivity. To begin my segment, I’ll begin to discuss on some of the most important definitions of globalization. Lastly, I’ll begin to investigate the imbalanced and difficult practices that make up globalization.