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Friday, February 3, 2012

POLITICS AND CULTURE IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD: THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION By Richard Payne and Jamal R. Nassar





         Essentially, the study of politics is the study of government and power allocation and use in society. Government is a mechanism that people employ to organize their affairs and to protect themselves from threats.
        Culture is a set of traditions, beliefs, and behaviors that a people express and hold. Although culture and politics are often interdependent, they can be separated in order to study societies. In our world, government, politics, and cultures are going through rapid transformation as a result of globalization.
          Covering a wide range of distinct political, economic, and cultural trends, the term “globalization” has quickly become one of the most fashionable buzzwords of contemporary political and academic debate. In popular discourse, globalization often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of the following phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal policies in the world economy, the growing dominance of western (or even American) forms of political, economic, and cultural life, the proliferation of new information technologies, as well as the notion that humanity stands at the threshold of realizing one single unified community in which major sources of social conflict have vanished.
          Although nationalism may promote competition among nations that produces growth and development, the competition may spawn wars and genocide. Nationalism may also lead to colonialism or the expansion of a nation beyond its territories. It was also nationalism that led to wars of national liberation, such as the American and the Indian revolutions from the British monarchy. Despite wars of national liberation, the legacy of colonialism on all countries that were either colonizers or colonized is permanent.
        Although the transfer of wealth under colonial enterprises has always been lopsided, the transfer of ideas has been more equal because Europeans and the people they colonized equally acquired many advances in civilization.
       Fortunately, recent social theory has formulated a more precise concept of globalization than those typically offered by pundits. Although sharp differences continue to separate participants in the ongoing debate, most contemporary social theorists endorse the view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in the spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which the significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in the face of a no less dramatic acceleration in the temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity. Geographical distance is typically measured in time. As the time necessary to connect distinct geographical locations is reduced, distance or space undergoes compression or “annihilation.”
         The human experience of space is intimately connected to the temporal structure of those activities by means of which we experience space. Changes in the temporality of human activity inevitably generate altered experiences of space or territory. Theorists of globalization disagree about the precise sources of recent shifts in the spatial and temporal contours of human life. Nonetheless, they generally agree that alterations in humanity's experiences of space and time are working to undermine the importance of local and even national boundaries in many arenas of human endeavor. Since globalization contains far-reaching implications for virtually every facet of human life, it necessarily suggests the need to rethink key questions of normative political theory.
        The costs of development include (1) urbanization; (2) pollution; (3) deforestation; (4) political instability and corruption; (5) the destruction of cultural artifacts and communities due to the construction of dams, airports, roads, and other infrastructure projects; (6) consumerism; and (7) the growing in quality within developing countries.
      The effects of Globalization exert intense influence on the financial condition as well as the industrial sector of a particular nation. Globalization gives birth to markets based on industrial productions across the world. This in turn, widens the access to a diverse variety of foreign commodities for consumption of the customers, owing to the marketing strategies undertaken by different corporations.
        Access to education and economic opportunities has enabled many women in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to develop a degree of social and financial dependence that most women in the United States and other industrialized countries enjoy.
       The fact remains, however, that women throughout the world remain the largest marginalized group. In the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, women are still seen as inferior beings. Such conditions in poor countries are shaped to some extent by colonialism and the globalization of industry and trade.
        As far as Political Globalization is concerned, it helps in the formation of a world government to normalize the existing interactions among countries. It also ensures the rights emerging out of Economic and Social Globalization.
        A major component of democratic societies is the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Although transitions to democracy continue throughout Asia, Latin, and Africa, they do not occur in and prioritized these components.
       Ethnic group members often have their own social organizations, support a particular political party, live in specific areas of the country, attend the same schools, develop business partnerships, and are associated with the same religious organizations.
         Ethnic identity often functions to draw sharp distinctions among groups to promote group solidarity. Because of those distinctions, the most obvious cause of ethnic conflict is the geographic proximity of different groups. In the United States of America, the term "ethnic" carries a different meaning from how it is commonly used in some other countries due to the historical and ongoing significance of racial distinctions that categorize together what might otherwise have been viewed as ethnic groups. For example, various ethnic, "national," or linguistic groups from Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands, Latin America and Indigenous America have long been aggregated as racial minority groups
       There are many different types of migration and migrants. The latter can include internally displaced people, refugees, and migrants, and the former includes transcontinental migration, rural – to - rural migration, and seasonal migration. Migration for work in the 21st century has become a popular way for individuals from impoverished developing countries to obtain sufficient income for survival. This income is sent home to family members in the form of remittances and has become an economic staple in a number of developing countries, namely the Philippines and those in Latin America. There are a number of theories to explain the international flow of capital and people from one country to another.
        The foreign policies of developing countries are influenced by many factors, including (1) the country’s geographical location, (2) the level of economic development of the country, (3) the nature of the country’s political system and the quality of its leadership, (4) the military capabilities of the country, (5) the nature of international public opinion and the priorities of major countries and non – state actors, and (6) cultural ties with other countries.
        
        In my own understanding of the book the developing world or countries represents the overwhelmingly majority of the people and countries of our world, yet economic policies remain centered on a few countries that are mostly in Europe and North America leaving Africa, Rest of Asian Countries to be undeveloped.
    The book is so good that the author wishes us to see the depths of the developments brought to us by globalization concerning the causes and its impact in our life. It is time now for us to THINK BIG! DO BIG! And BE RESPONSIBLE as a Citizen as this contributes as well to the developments of our own country.The Philippines still on her way to the developments she dream of. It will be only accomplished if we cooperate to the government and to our countrymen.




                                                                                                BLOG REVIEWED BY:
                                                                                                SAMUEL A. EUSEBIO
                                                                                                4-18HISTORY

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