Pengertian Globalisasi
Globalisasi sering diartikan sebagai interaksi antar manusia di muka bumi yang sudah semakin intensif karena kemajuan teknologi komunikasi. Globalisasi di satu sisi menimbulkan masalah tetapi juga memberikan banyak manfaat. Berikut definisi globalisasi :
Andrew Hurrell
“globalization”
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics.
Globalization A central part of the rhetoric of contemporary world politics and the subject of increasing volumes of academic analysis. It resists any single or simple definition. Although often associated with claims that the present world system is undergoing transformation, it is an old idea. There is a long tradition of writers emphasizing the external economic constraints that act upon nation states and the transforming impact of global economic processes, with Marx being amongst the most powerful and prescient. Such themes were revived in the late 1960s and early 1970s when writers on interdependence and modernization argued that the rapid expansion of international trade and investment, the increased awareness of ecological interdependence, the declining utility of military power, and the increasing power of non-state actors ( multinational corporations but also religious organizations and terrorist groups) constituted a systemic shift that would increasingly undermine the traditional role and primacy of nation states. The 1970s literature on interdependence faded under pressure from two sources. First, the reappearance of superpower confrontation and the second Cold War appeared to justify those who took a more Hobbesian view of international life, dominated by military confrontation rather than economic exchange. Second, within academia, statists and realists responded vigorously, arguing, for example, that multinational corporations were closely tied to states and to patterns of interstate politics; that the state was still the most important institution of international order; that military power had not declined in its utility; and, most important of all, that the international political system with its dominant logic of power balancing remained the most important element of any theory of international politics.
However, with the end of the Cold War, academic interest shifted back to the role of external or global economic factors, this time under the broad banner of ‘globalization’. It is far from easy to gather together the wide variety of meanings attached to the term globalization. At one level it appears simple. Globalization is about the universal process or set of processes which generate a multiplicity of linkages and interconnections which transcend the states and societies which make up the modern world system. It involves a dramatic increase in the density and depth of economic, ecological, and societal interdependence, with ‘density’ referring to the increased number, range, and scope of cross-border transactions; and ‘depth’ to the degree to which that interdependence affects, and is affected by, the ways in which societies are organized domestically.
In reality, much of the muddle and inconclusiveness of the debates on globalization stem from the ambiguities of the concept. Globalization is sometimes presented as a causal theory: certain sorts of global processes are held to cause certain kinds of outcomes; sometimes it is a collection of concepts, mapping (but not explaining) how the changing global system is to be understood; and sometimes it is understood as a particular kind of discourse or ideology (often associated with neo-liberalism). There are also important distinctions between economistic readings of globalization (that stress increased interstate transactions and flows of capital, labour, goods and services) and social and political readings (that stress the emergence of new forms of governance and authority, new arenas of political action (‘deterritorialization’ or the ‘reconfiguration of social space’), or new understandings of identity or community). Within economistic readings, there are distinctions between a traditional focus on interstate economic transactions and broader shifts in transnational production-structures and the emergence of new kinds of deterritorialized markets. Distinctions are also drawn between globalization, internationalization, westernization, and modernization. And there is the important distinction between the claim that globalization should be seen as the continuation of a deep-rooted set of historical processes and the view that contemporary globalization represents a critical break-point or fundamental discontinuity in world politics.
Perhaps the most important single idea concerns the growing disjuncture between the notion of a sovereign state directing its own future, the dynamics of the contemporary global economy, and the increasing complexity of world society. More specifically, there are three broad categories of claim that globalization is having a deep, perhaps revolutionary, impact. In the first place, it is widely argued that certain sets of economic policy tools have ceased to be viable and that states face ever increasing pressures to adopt increasingly similar pro-market policies. Because of the increasing power of financial markets, governments are forced into pursuing macroeconomic policies that meet with the approval of these markets. Increasing trade also places governments under pressure to adopt pro-market policies, avoiding policies which would imply the need to harm business by taxation, or to raise interest rates as a consequence of increased borrowing. They also find themselves forced to cut back the role of the public economy in order to attract inward investment from increasingly footloose multinational companies quick to punish governments who stray from the path of economic righteousness by exercising their exit option. Consequently, the range of policy options open to governments is claimed to be dramatically reduced.
A second cluster of arguments relates to the degree to which globalization has created the conditions for an ever more intense and activist global or transnational civil society. The physical infrastructure of increased economic interdependence (new systems of communication and transportation) and the extent to which new technologies (satellites, computer networks, etc.) have increased the costs and difficulty for governments of controlling flows of information, has facilitated the diffusion of values, knowledge, and ideas, and enhanced the ability of like-minded groups to organize across national boundaries. Transnational civil society, then, refers to those self-organized intermediary groups that are relatively independent of both public authorities and private economic actors; that are capable of taking collective action in pursuit of their interests or values; and that act across state borders. Globalization writers have laid great emphasis on the roles played by non-governmental organizations, social movements, and multinational corporations, but such activity also includes transnational drug and criminal groups and transnational terrorism. The analytical focus of much of this work has been on transnational networks—for example, knowledge-based networks of economists, lawyers, or scientists; or transnational advocacy networks which act as channels for flows of money and material resources but, more critically, of information and ideas.
A third cluster of arguments suggests that it is institutional enmeshment rather than economic transactions or the ‘reconfiguration of social space’ that has most constrained the state. On this view, states are increasingly rule-takers over a vast array of rules, laws, and norms that are promulgated internationally but which affect almost every aspect of how they organize their societies domestically. Proponents of this view highlight the tremendous growth in the number of international organizations; they point to the vast increase in both the number of international treaties and agreements and the scope and intrusiveness of such agreements; and they suggest that important changes are occurring in the character of the international legal system (the increased pluralism of the process by which new norms and rules emerge; the appearance of more and more ‘islands of supranational governance’ (such as the EU or the WTO); the blurring of municipal, international, and transnational law; and the increased importance of informal, yet norm-governed, governance mechanisms, often built around complex transnational and transgovernmental networks).
The critics attack along a number of fronts. First, they highlight the lack of clear and consistent definitions of globalization and the deep ambiguities as to what ‘globalization theory’ is supposed to involve or explain. Second, they point to the mounting empirical grounds for scepticism, for example: that levels of globalization are not higher or more intense than in earlier periods (especially the period before WW1); that there is no clear evidence of state retreat, of welfare states being cut back because of globalization pressures, of transnational capital standing in automatic opposition to social welfare, or of globalization being the most important factor in explaining levels of inequality in OECD countries. Whilst many of the changes and challenges of globalization are very real, the critics argue that they do not point in a single direction and certainly do not provide secure grounds for accepting the claim that some sort of deep change or transformation is under way. Third, the critics argue that globalization has been driven not by some unstoppable logic of technological innovation, but by specific sets of state policies, backed by specific political coalitions. This suggests that states themselves are not passive players and that the impact of globalization will often depend on national-level political and institutional factors. Equally, even where liberalizing effects can be attributed to globalization, it is not always the case that this implies state retreat—as in the process by which privatization and deregulation have involved re-regulation. Nor does globalization inevitably push governments towards declining state activism. It can, on the contrary, lead to increased pressure on government to provide protection against the economic and social dislocations that arise from increased liberalization and external vulnerability. Finally, the critics remain deeply unconvinced by the arguments for systemic transformation, highlighting the degree to which international institutions are created by states for particular purposes and the evident capacity of powerful states to resist or even abandon such institutions; the continued importance of military power controlled by states and of political boundaries and of national allegiances even in regions of dense economic and societal interdependence; and the very deep resistance of the United States as the global hegemon to contemplate giving up its own sovereignty and the capacity of the United States to both shape and resist the course of globalization.
Andrew Hurrell “globalization” The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
