Globalisation is the growing interconnectedness between political, social, economic and cultural systems beyond national, regional and international borders.[1] It is related with the regulations of politics and global conduct of commerce, finance, and economies. Globalisation as a concept or phenomenon has been argued to be as old as the time of empires which connected different parts of the world together, even before the 15th century; but some economists, historians among others have argued that the concept is relatively new.
Globalisation is a paradox in the contemporary world,[2] and it has different facets, layers and dimensions Thus, in conceptualising the term globalisation, this post will use different categories. The first category sees globalisation as the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the whole world as a whole, denoting that globalisation makes the world a single place in thoughts and action. This category is under the World Culture Theory. To further explain this view, globalisation will be used as a term that covers the acceleration in concrete global interdependence and consciousness of the global whole, it entails the crystallisation of four main components namely socialisation, internationalisation, individuation and generalisation of consciousness of mankind in how societies and nation states integrate.[3]
A second category is the category that lays emphasis on globalisation as the growth, enactment and creation of world culture, consisting of gender equality, protection of human rights, citizenship, the state’s system, protecting against climate change, child right campaign, democratic regimes etc. To this category, the emergence of globalisation can be traced to the middle of the nineteenth century and by the end of twentieth century when globalisation metamorphosed to have a world culture. This category is the World Polity Theory. It further indicates the presence of no single actor and no single institution telling the world what is standard and accepted. Thus, responsibility and authority was said to be allocated to states, non-state actors, international organisations, etc to participate in the global agenda.[4]
The third category is the World system theory which perceives the world as having structures consisting of mini-systems with mainly three structures which are the periphery states, semi periphery states and core states. Thus, this category sees globalisation as the integration or interconnection of these mini systems through economic activities or trade, thus making some of the parts interdependent on others.[5] Through this, it can be said that the periphery states end up being dependent on the core states.
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[1] Jan Palmowski 2008. Dictionary of Contemporary World History .U.S: Oxford University press. P260
[2] Ako-Nai R.I and David I.D. 2013 Globalisation, Human Development and The Female Gender in Nigeria in Nigeria at 5o:PoliticsSociety and Development, Sofela B. Edo .V.O and Olaniyi R.O (eds) Ibadan: John Archers Pub Ltd. p274-278
[3] Robertson R.. 1986. The Globalisation Paradigm in Theories of Globalisation Frank Lecher retrieved 15/07/2017
[4] Frank Lecher, Theories of Globalisation :World Polity Theory retrieved 15/07/2017
[5] Frank Lecher, Theories of Globalisation :World system Theory retrieved 15/07/2017
