hello everybody and welcome back in the last lesson what we did was talk about the concept of the nation state as part of the central theme when it comes to the study of global politics and in this lesson what we're going to do is talk about a secondary aspect of the concept of the nation state and the concept of global international relations which is the idea of globalization so globalization itself is just a phrase that we use to describe a process through which the world becomes more and more interconnected where different nation states across the world connect more with each other in different ways now this is done through a number of different means and a number of different processes and it should be noted that it is important to remember that globalization is something that happens along a number of different veins it is not just a single concept there are lots of different types of globalization three of which we are going to discuss in this lesson we're also going to discuss the nature of globalization and then we'll explore in the next lesson the impact of globalization on international politics and global politics as a whole so as i've mentioned globalization can be done through multiple different means the three that we're going to examine in this lesson are economic globalization political globalization as well as cultural globalization for the purposes of international politics in my opinion the first two are more important than the latter however all three give us a much more holistic view of how globalization actually takes place in practical terms so let's begin with economic globalization and economic globalization as the name suggests is the process by which different economies around the world become more and more interconnected it is the globalization of different economic systems across the world from a macroeconomic perspective what economic globalization is linked heavily with is a number of different theories within economics namely theories that relate to the sort of neo-classical economic theory and that is emphasized through the sort of school of thought that is described as what we call the washington consensus and at the end of the second world war we see the introduction of new international global organizations and some of these include the bretton woods economic institutions so the bretton woods conference was a conference that established a number of different pillars of economic law essentially international economic law and they described that there ought to be three main pillars of international economic law this included international trade regulation international monetary law as well as international investment regulation that is what the bretton woods conference or the bretton woods economic institutions include and the establishment of the specific institutions include things like the creation of the world bank the creation of the international monetary fund the creation of the general agreements on tariffs and trade the gat which then is it remains the gap for a very long period of time until becoming the world trade organization in 1995 and there is also in this sort of early post-world war ii period a an attempt to try and regulate trade in a way that is ultimately regulated through the world trade organization and this is known as the international trade organization it's another example of an economic institution but it actually failed it was never successful in being ratified so the uh this is the preamble to the world trade organization so we get the general agreement on tariffs and trade which is the gat which is a system that is already established and then there is the creation of what is known as the havana charter which is the charter that is meant to establish this international trade organization but the international trade organization fails for a number of different reasons it was you could come to the conclusion that the international trade organization fails one of the main reasons was the lack of support from the united states it was not on the agenda for congress to ratify the havana charter and there was also the growing problem of tensions increasing both tensions between the global north and the global south in the sense that we see a lot of newly independent former colonies becoming gain their own independence post-world war ii and this led to a little bit of distrust between these new independent colonies and the global west but there was also the eastern and western divide that was exemplified you through the language of the cold war between between the soviet union and the usa so the havana charter for the international trade organization ultimately fails but would have made up the main pillars of international economic law that we can explore with the world bank the international monetary fund the gat and then subsequently the world trade organization what's interesting too is that the international trade organization actually attempted not just to regulate international trade but also to try and regulate international investment which was seen as the third of these different pillars of economic law there was the global monetary law that is exemplified through the world bank and the imf there was trade law which was exemplified through the ito the gat and then subsequently the wto and then also through the ito there was this regulation of international investment the flow of money from one country into another ultimately failed but there's just a little side story for for you there with economic globalization different nation states become closely related from an economics perspective and this is through the lens of a number of different economic principles so for example reducing trade barriers is an example of connecting economies in a much more free state allowing free movement rights for the different modes of production as well as financial integration economic globalization has also been achieved on regional levels so we could talk about for example the european union the arguably the economic constitution of the european union is undoubtedly the european union's single market and the eu single market provides for the deep integration of the member states economies and it allows for the free movement of all the different modes of production within the european union single market we have the free movement of goods we have the free movement of people we have the freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment now what this freedom refers to is the freedom for you to establish business operations in another member state and therefore provide services in that other member state that's what freedom of establishment refers to and then there's also the financial aspect the free movement of capital and the um globe and the sorry the european common currency that also exists as well there are other examples of where this has taken place where there are economic institutions or agreements that have been allowed to create a much further deeper integration of different economies so for example you have the nafta agreement in america the north american free trade agreement between the usa canada and mexico again there is a little bit of a back and forth going on that was going on when it came to the uh update of nafta under donald trump but there's not been much movement on that as of recently you've also got the ancient group in asia that are again another mode of economic integration and also another example of economic globalization you could even talk about the african union which is the almost the african variation of the european union or at least that's what um in some regards is they strive to become the deeper integration of different african states through economic modes of production as well so all of these things are all examples of how economic globalization has taken place but on top of economic globalization we can also talk about political globalization and this is the process by which the different political processes of nation states become more integrated become greater integrated it refers to how nation-states will share political power through different political institutions on a global level now this has obviously been seen as you can definitely cite lots of pla plenty of different examples this has definitely been seen through the growth of international political institutions now these international political institutions that signify political globalization can be expressed through different types of institutions so there could be purely political institutions you could be talking about legal institutions you could be talking about security institutions and you can also be talking about as well economic institutions because there is a certain amount of politicization of different economies and economics and where we have deeper economic integration you tend to find that what comes with that is also political integration and political globalization so for example the european union is a uh the most the bulk of the european union's work is in different integrations of economies into the economic integration across the member states this is done through the single market process through the single market law there's also other regulation as well such as competition law but what all of this does is it it shows that in order for us to have this kind of deep economic institution there also has to be political integration as well and political globalization which is what we see with the different institutions of the european union like the council commission the parliament et cetera et cetera other examples of course include the united nations this is an example of political globalization where different member states are able to have political processes take place on an international level others include again another economic institution the world trade organization in the sense of a of a legal institution you can talk about the international criminal court that's a an example of the political processes that take place in the in the prosecution of international crimes and then from a security perspective when we talk about security institutions you can talk about the north atlantic treaty organization or nato that is also an example of political globalization and then as i've already mentioned the european union is an example of both economic and political globalization the final thing i want to talk about is cultural globalization now this is a much more ethereal concept because while we can actually uh signify very clearly the kind of institutions that operate in terms of economic globalization and political globalization cultural globalization is a lot more like i've said here it's a lot more ethereal in in its in its notions and it's the idea that cultures and social ideas become more integrated on the basis of the nation state on uh through different nation states across the globe and it's often associated with ideas relating to materialism and materialistic values so for example the desire for material and consumer products is a key contribution to cultural globalization we a subcategory of cultural globalization is the americanization of different aspects of popular culture essentially america the united states exports its culture to and across the entire globe this is done through hollywood when it comes to movies and tv in terms of fast food and and their their food culture in terms of things you know mcdonald's kfc etc etc these are all um restaurants that pop up all across the rest of the world and also in terms of music the culture that is developed in the united states in terms of music and the musical development is also exported across the world and all of these different things and an example of americanization can be seen as a significant contribution to cultural globalization