globalization

Definition of Globalization

(noun) Worldwide flow and integration of culture, media, and technology due to advances in communication systems and economic interests.

Example of Globalization

• Hollywood or Bollywood films being released around the world.
• McDonald’s catering to the local population by adapting typical products.

Globalization Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: glob·al·i·za·tion

Audio Pronunciation

Phonetic Spelling

• American English – /gloh-buh-luh-zAY-shuhn/
• British English – /gloh-buh-lie-zAY-shuhn/

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /ˌɡloʊbələˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/
• British English – /ˌɡləʊbl̩ʌɪˈzeɪʃn/

Usage Notes

• Plural: globalizations
• Variant spelling: globalisation

Related Quotations

• “The undue reliance which sociologists have placed upon the idea of ‘society‘, where this means a bounded system, should be replaced by a starting point that concentrates upon analysing how social life is ordered across time and space – the problem of time-space distanciation. The conceptual framework of time-space distanciation directs our attention to the complex relations between local involvements (circumstances of co-presence) and interaction across distance (the connections of presence and absence). In the modern era, the level of time-space distanciation is much higher than in any previous period, and the relations between local and distant social forms and events become correspondingly ‘stretched’. Globalisation refers essentially to that stretching process, in so far as the modes of connection between different social contexts or regions become networked across the earth’s surface as a whole. Globalisation can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens 1991:63–64).
• “With the advent of globalization and the increased mobility of professionals and workers of all kinds across national boundaries, the problem of recognizing ‘credentials‘ obtained in other countries has come to the fore. On the one hand, professional organizations and other occupational associations are concerned that the influx of such credentialed individuals may weaken their control over the supply of ‘qualified’ labor; on the other hand, governments are under pressure to recognize such ‘foreign credentials’ by a public that is anxious to alleviate a real or perceived scarcity of professional service providers in such areas as medicine and law” (Smith 2008:166–67).

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Additional Information

• Food and Agriculture Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Politics and Policy Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Word origin of “globalization” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso Books.
• Barber, Benjamin. 1996. Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Ballantine.
• Barnartt, Sharon. 2010. “The Globalization of Disability Protests, 1970–2005: Pushing the Limits of Cross-cultural Research?” Comparative Sociology 9(2):222–40. doi:10.1163/156913210×12536181351114.
• Baylis, John, Stephen Anthony Smith, and Patricia Owens. 2017. The Globalization of World Politics. 7th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Carmody, Pádraig. 2002. “Between Globalisation and (Post) Apartheid: The Political Economy of Restructuring in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 28(2):255–75. doi:10.1080/03057070220140694.
• Cohen, Robin, and Paul Kennedy. 2000. Global Sociology. London: Macmillan.
• Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton. 1999. Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Hirst, Paul Q., Grahame Thompson, and Simon Bromley. 2009. Globalization in Question. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Hulme, David, and Mark M. Turner. 1990. Sociology and Development: Theories and Practice. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
• Kendall, Gavin, Ian Woodward, and Zlatko Skrbiš. 2009. The Sociology of Cosmopolitanism: Globalization, Identity, Culture and Government. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Kerr, Clark, John T. Harbison, and Frederick Dunlop. 1969. Industrialism and Industrial Man. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Khanna, Parag. 2008. The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. New York: Random House.
• Kilminster, Richard. 1998. The Sociological Revolution: From the Enlightenment to the Global Age. London: Routledge.
• Krieger, Joel. 2006. Globalization and State Power: A Reader. New York: Pearson Education.
• Lechner, Frank, and John Boli. 2012. The Globalization Reader. Chichester, West Sussex: J. Wiley & Sons.
• Lemert, Charles, ed. 2017. Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings. 6th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview.
• Martell, Luke. 2017. The Sociology of Globalization. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Menzies, Gavin. 2002. 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. London: Bantam.
• Nash, Kate. 2010. Contemporary Political Sociology: Globalization, Politics, and Power. 2nd. ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
• Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System. London: Collier Macmillan.
• Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. 2015. Globalization and Culture. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Renard, Marie-Christine. 1999. “The Interstices of Globalization: The Example of Fair Coffee.” Sociologia Ruralis 39(4):484–500. doi:10.1111/1467-9523.00120.
• Robertson, R. 1995. “Glocalization: Time–space and Homogeneity–heterogeneity.” Pp. 25–44 in Global Modernities, edited by M. Featherstone, S. Lash, and R. Robertson. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
• Schlosser Eric. 2002. Fast Food Nation. London: Penguin.
• Simpson, E. S. 1994. The Developing World: An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Longman.
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2002. Globalization and Its Discontents. London: Allen Lane.
• Speth, James Gustave, ed. Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment. Washington, DC: Island.
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974, 1980, 1989. The Modern World-system. 3 vols. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Waters, Malcolm. 2001. Globalization. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
• Wheen, Francis. 2004. How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World. London: Harper Perennial.

Related Terms

• economic
• global assembly line
• global city
• global commodity chain
• global inequality
• global stratification
• power
• status
• technological diffusion
• wealth

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References

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Smith, Murray. 2008. “credentialism.” Pp. 166–67 in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2nd ed., edited by W. Darity. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.

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Cite the Definition of Globalization

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “globalization.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved February 9, 2025 (https://sociologydictionary.org/globalization/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

globalization. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/globalization/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “globalization.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://sociologydictionary.org/globalization/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“globalization.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 9 Feb. 2025. <https://sociologydictionary.org/globalization/>.