# Globalisation

Sociology I · Contemporary Social Processes · https://tryals.app/learn/sociology-i/globalisation

## Three Readings of the Same Numbers

**Globalisation** is the intensification of worldwide social relations linking distant localities. It covers economic, political, cultural, and ecological connections.

**Held, McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton** (1999) divided the debate into three broad positions:

| Position | Claim | Verdict on the state |
|---|---|---|
| Hyperglobalist | A borderless world economy has emerged | Hollowed out, increasingly irrelevant |
| Sceptic | Internationalisation, not globalisation | Still the decisive actor |
| Transformationalist | Unprecedented, open-ended interconnection | Reconstituted, not abolished |

The **sceptical** case, argued by Hirst and Thompson (1996), compares current data to pre-1914 levels. They note trade remains concentrated among rich nations. The **transformationalist** reply stresses that production is now globally integrated and financial speed is unprecedented.

Key figures put this scale in perspective:
- Migrants numbered **281 million** in 2020 (United Nations estimate).
- This represents **3.6 per cent** of world population, meaning 96 per cent stay native-born.
- Remittances topped **650 billion US dollars** in 2023 (World Bank estimate).

## Cultural and Structural Perspectives

Sociologists analyse the qualitative dimensions of globalisation differently:

- **George Ritzer** warns of McDonaldization, where principles of fast-food rationalisation spread globally.
- **Roland Robertson** introduced **glocalization**, arguing global forms are always adapted locally.
- **Immanuel Wallerstein** framed the global economy into core, semi-periphery, and periphery zones.
- **Saskia Sassen** showed that dispersing production concentrates strategic command in major global cities.
- **Manuel Castells** analysed how power flows through transnational digital networks.

> **Common pitfall:** treating globalisation as something that happened to states rather than something states did. Tariff reductions, financial deregulation, and cross-border legal frameworks were all deliberate state policies.

## Practice questions

10 of this lesson's 15 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Hirst and Thompson pointed out that trade and capital flows relative to output were already high before 1914. Why does that comparison not settle the argument against globalisation?

A. Pre-1914 trade data excluded raw materials, so modern ratios cannot be compared.
B. Sceptics only assessed migration rates, ignoring total flows of capital and goods.
C. Similar ratios hide structural shifts: globalised production and faster finance.
D. Pre-1914 flows were purely market-led, while modern integration relies on states.

**Answer:** C. Similar ratios hide structural shifts: globalised production and faster finance.

**Why:** The ratio is a real and awkward finding for the strongest globalisation claims. But a single supply chain crossing six borders and a shipment of wheat both count as trade, and financial positions can now be unwound in seconds. The sceptics have shown the quantities are less unprecedented than advertised; they have not shown the structure is the same.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/hirst-and-thompson-pointed-out-that-trade-and-capital-flows-relative

### 2. Around 96 per cent of the world’s population lives in the country where they were born.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True**, on the 2020 United Nations estimate of about 281 million international migrants, roughly 3.6 per cent of the world’s people. The figure is worth carrying into any discussion of migration policy, because public estimates of the migrant share in surveys are routinely several times too high.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/around-96-per-cent-of-the-worlds-population-lives-in-the-country

### 3. Which observations support the sceptical position on globalisation?

A. Cross-border production networks are historically unprecedented in their organisation
B. Much of the legal and institutional openness was created by deliberate state decisions
C. Trade, investment and migration are heavily concentrated among a small group of rich economies
D. Trade and capital flows relative to output were already high before 1914

**Answer:** B. Much of the legal and institutional openness was created by deliberate state decisions; C. Trade, investment and migration are heavily concentrated among a small group of rich economies; D. Trade and capital flows relative to output were already high before 1914

**Why:** The first three all say the same thing in different registers: the phenomenon is smaller, more concentrated and more politically authored than the hyperglobalist picture allows. The fourth is the reply, and it concedes the ratios while disputing what they are ratios of.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/which-observations-support-the-sceptical-position-on-globalisation

### 4. Complete the map of the three positions on globalisation.

**Answer:** The **hyperglobalist** position holds that a genuinely borderless world economy has emerged and that states have been hollowed out. The **sceptical** position holds that what has occurred is internationalisation with strong historical precedents. The **transformationalist** position holds that interconnection is unprecedented but that states have been reconstituted rather than abolished. The scheme was set out in Global **Transformations** in 1999.

**Why:** The scheme is worth learning because almost every public argument about globalisation is one of these three without saying so. Identifying which one a claim belongs to usually reveals what evidence would count against it, which is more than most of the arguments manage on their own.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/complete-the-map-of-the-three-positions-on-globalisation

### 5. Sort each claim by whether it belongs to the economic, the cultural or the political dimension of globalisation.

**Answer:**

- Economic: Cross-border production, Instant capital shifts
- Cultural: Global fast-food models, Localised global formats
- Political: Firms suing host states, Blocs gain state powers

**Why:** Keeping the three dimensions apart prevents the commonest error in the field, which is inferring one from another. Economic integration has advanced much further than political integration almost everywhere, and cultural flows have never run only in the direction the economic ones do.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/sort-each-claim-by-whether-it-belongs-to-the-economic-the-cultural

### 6. Estimate the percentage of the world’s population who were international migrants in 2020, on the United Nations estimate.

**Answer:** 3.6 (within ±1.2)

**Why:** **About 3.6 per cent.** Surveys in European countries routinely find respondents estimating the migrant share of their own country at two or three times the true figure, and the global share is smaller still. The number is not an argument about policy; it is the baseline any such argument has to start from.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/estimate-the-percentage-of-the-worlds-population-who-were

### 7. In which year did Held, McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton publish Global Transformations, which set out the three-position map of the debate?

**Answer:** 1999

**Why:** **1999.** The book arrived at the peak of the argument and has outlasted most of the positions it catalogued, largely because it treated the dispute as an empirical one about the extent and direction of change rather than as a choice of political attitude.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/in-which-year-did-held-mcgrew-goldblatt-and-perraton-publish-global

### 8. World-systems analysis divides the world economy into core, semi-periphery and periphery, and was developed before the term globalisation came into general use.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True.** Wallerstein’s first volume appeared in 1974, well before the vocabulary of globalisation spread. That chronology is part of his argument: on his account a single world division of labour had existed since the sixteenth century, so what the 1990s discovered was not a new phenomenon but a new name.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/world-systems-analysis-divides-the-world-economy-into-core

### 9. Transformationalists view contemporary globalisation as reconstituting rather than abolishing the nation-state. What follows from this distinction for political power?

A. States have lost sovereign control to borderless world markets.
B. States actively design the frameworks that enable global flows.
C. States retreat entirely from regulating national economic life.
D. States retain their pre-1914 borders and traditional roles intact.

**Answer:** B. States actively design the frameworks that enable global flows.

**Why:** Hyperglobalists wrongly assume that integration makes governance obsolete, while sceptics treat state authority as essentially unchanged. Transformationalists recognise that international flows rely on states actively constructing legal, deregulatory, and institutional infrastructure.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/transformationalists-view-contemporary-globalisation-as

### 10. Ritzer argues that a single rationalised organisational form is spreading worldwide, while Robertson argues that global forms are always locally reworked. How can both descriptions be supported by the same evidence?

A. Ritzer focuses strictly on Western economics; Robertson analyses Eastern religions
B. The same process drives both standardisation and adaptation, as forms adapt to spread
C. Rationalisation applies only to manufacturing, whilst adaptation occurs in services
D. One studies modern post-industrial networks; the other examines imperial trade routes

**Answer:** B. The same process drives both standardisation and adaptation, as forms adapt to spread

**Why:** The organisational template — efficiency, calculability, predictability, control — travels intact while menus, staffing and meanings are reworked at every site. Robertson’s point is that this is not a compromise between two forces but the mechanism of the spread itself, which is why glocalization is a friendly amendment rather than a refutation.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/sociology-i/globalisation/ritzer-argues-that-a-single-rationalised-organisational-form-is