CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The phenomenon of globalization begin in a primitive form when humans first settled into different areas of the world; however, it has shown a rather steady and rapid progress in the recent times and has become an international dynamic which due to technological advancement. Has increased in speed and scale, so that countries in all five continents have been affected and engaged.
The term globalization, cover a wide range of distinct political, economic and cultural trends. It has become one of the most popular topics of debate around circles. It has been used by economists since the 1980s, social theorist have moved beyond the relatively under developed character of previous reflections on the compression and annihilation of space to offer a rigorous conception of globalization.
Human societies across the global have established progressively closer conducts over many centuries, but recently the pace has dramatically increased. Jet air planes. Cheap telephone service, email, computer, huge oceangoing vessels, instant capital flows; all these have made the world more interpedently than ever. Multinational corporations manufacture products in many countries and sell to consumers around the world. Many, technology and raw materials move ever more swiftly across national borders. Along with products and finances, ideas and cultures circulate more freely. Many politicians’ academics and journalists treat these trends as both inevitable and welcome. But for billions of the world’s people, business-driven globalization means uprooting old ways of life and threatening livelihoods and cultures. Intense political disputes will continue over globalization meaning and it’s future direction.
What is Globalization? it is defined as a process which, based on international strategies, aims to expand business operations on a worldwide level and was precipitated by the facilitation of global communications due to technological advancements, and socio economic, political and environmental developments. Globalization, the growing integration of economies and societies around the world, has sparked one of the most highly charge debates of the past decade. Critics of globalization have argued that the process have exploited people in developing countries, caused massive disruptions and produced few benefits. Supporter point to the significant reductions in poverty achieved by countries that have embraced integration with the world economy such as China, Vietnam. India and Uganda.
Contemporary analysts associate globalization with deterntorialization, according to which growing variety of social activities takes place irrespective of the geographical location of participants. As Jan Aart Schulte observe global events can via telecommunication. Audio-visual media almost occur simultaneously anywhere and every where in the world” (Schotte, 1996: 45) Globalization refers to increased possibilities for action between and among people in situation where latitudinal and longitudinal location seen immaterial to the social activity at hand. Business people in different continents now engage in electronic commerce, academics make use of the latest video conferring equipment to organize seminars in which participants are located at different geographical locations. In this sense, the term globalization refers to the spread of new forms of non-territorial social activity.
Globalization also include reference to the speed and velocity directly of social activity. Heterritorialization and interconnectedness initially seem spartial in nature. Yet it is easy to see how these spartial shifts are directly tied to the acceleration of crucial forms of social activity. There have been various ideas and definitions by different scholars, economies, social and political scientists.
Globalization as defined by Allansare – Ouatera (1997) as the integration of economies throughout the world trade, financial flows, the exchange of technology and information and the movement of people. The extent of trend towards integration is Cleary reflected in the rising importance of world trade and capital flows in the word economy.
An increasingly large scale of world GDP is generated in activities linked directly or indirectly to international trade. And there has been a phenomenal growth in cross- boarder financial flows, particularly in the form of private equity and portfolio investment compared with the past. In addition, the resolution in communication, transportation technology and availability of information have allowed individuals and firms to base their economic choices more on the quality of the economic environment in different countries.
Globalization as defined by OECD (1993) as a process by which markets and production in different countries are becoming increasingly interdependent due to the dynamics of trade in goods and services and the flow of capital and technology.
Scholars like Ghai, Robertson feather Stone and Ake, see globalization as the restructuring of global capitalism characterized by the increased profile of international financial institutions, corporations and information technology. In the sociological and cultural realm, it is impossible to see elements of an emerging “global culture” which Tade Akin – Aina argues, have combined to create new conditions of proximity, intensity and Intimacy.
Globalization according to Omolayole (2002), as the process by which the world has been made to shrink to a point that accessibility of ideas and products of every nook and crannies of the world is no longer a problem. They constitute the “army of the champion” of globalization supported by most the government of highly industrialized nations.
Globalization has become a process of regarding the world as a single economic market and the ultimate in the push for and all pervading market economy in the world. However, trade liberation is the international process by which countries that belong to the trade organization work towards the lowering or removal of trade tariffs and barriers or the setting of a quota for certain goods from some countries.
Globalization according to Omoweh (2000) is the transcendence of the economic, social, cultural, political environmental constraints across territories. Globalization does not really mean crossing or opening up borders, but the transcendence of borders.
Globalization according to lpie Yamazawa (2000) is very much the “maga trend” of the current world economy and the process is irreversible. Owing to rapid technological progress in information, communication and transportation private enterprises have intensified their efforts to do business across national borders and constructed production and distributing networks on a global scale. The trend towards globalization involves both large enterprises as well as their small and medium sized counterparts in industrialized countries to developing countries, this process has become inescapable.
Globalization as described by Akpotor (1999) refers to the rapid integration of economies and markets world wide intensified financial flows, the information revolution and cross cultural currents. However Mitllmen (1994) explains that it involves the dissemination of the economy, polity and culture of one sphere into another, if this is so the human endeavor to influence or dominate has been evident throughout the ages. In common usage, the notion of globalization encompasses a wide range of phenomena from economic activities to the international of culture, communication, technology and tastes.
According to Gidens (1996), he explains it as not only to the emergence of large scale world systems but to transformation in the very texture of every day’s life. It affect even intricacies of personal identity. To live in a world where the image of Didier Drogba is more familiar than the face of one’s next door neighbours is to move in quite different contexts of social action from those that prevailed previously.
From the different definitions of globalization, one can deduce that globalization can be a powerful and dynamic force for strengthening co-operation and accelerating growth and development . At the same to time, it is accompanied by global constraints and amplified disturbances in the supply and movement of production factors. that is why Amin (1998) described it as a process that has led to a trend in which information, events and ideas corporations and commodities, identities and lifestyles move with such rapidity today and space have been compressed, tastes and consumption homogenized by inequalities, socials exclusion and polarization. Globalization can be a threat to a weak or capriciously governed state, but it also opens the way for effective disciplined state to foster development and economic well being and it sharpens the need for effective international co-operation pursuant of global collection
Statement of the Problem