Measurement of globalization and globalization indices §

Reading 1 §

New directions in globalization indices

Instruction: Read the article entitled “New directions in globalization indices”, and answer the following questions.

1. What is being measured when globalization is understood as internationalization, liberalization, universalization & Westernization, and deterritorialization, and what are the problems with these measurement approaches? §

• Interpret as Internationalization: their indicators relate to levels of transactions across country borders. Such data show the ‘openness’ of a country to contacts with other countries and its degree of integration into an overall international system. They calculated average openness indicators for countries in terms of their cross-border trade and investment flows.
  • Problem:
    • Neglect of geographical distribution of linkages: limitation to distinguish between a country’s internationalization on a regional as opposed to a global/world/planetary scale. Fail to distinguish globalization indicators with regionalization indicators
    • Problem with the unit of analysis: Only look at the state-level → The exclusion of intra-national factors (transactions within a country, individual level: communication from within to the outsides, information sharing through media).
• As liberalization: measure the prevalence of official policies of privatization, deregulation, tight money, and fiscal constraint. (i.e. does not measure transactions between countries, but the degree to which national governments adopt policies that facilitate ‘productivity’ and ‘growth’)
  • Problem: confusion between de facto (the practice of state) globalization and policies of globalization
  • Measuring the level of economic connections: inputs + content + outputs
  • Certain policies + relevant activities and transactions + consequences of those activities
• Globalization = Universalization & Westernization: measuring the spread of same experiences/objects (KFC) -MacDonald restaurants
  • Cultural bias (western things/values/trends)
  • Ideas are abstract and hard to measure therefore we use of proxy indicators to measure (however, still produce inaccuracy, example: measuring someone’s exposure level to the american products such as movie or music, this is can be inconsistent however because just because they are exposed to them does not mean they like or enjoy them, you dont necessary have the cultural connections/influence or inspired by the US. Therefore in measuring through this indicators it may produce inaccurate data)
• Globalization = Deterritorialization: supra-territorial connections (social connections , online communication)
  • Problem: data shortage (limitation to the access private datas, government constraints)
  • Units of analysis (state vs individual level, complexity in measuring between the two level)

2. How do globalization dimensions affect the measurement of globalization? §

Scholars have created dimensions such economic , political, ecological, social and cultural to capture a better view of globalizations. However, in choosing each of these dimensions, different scholars will collect data through different ways/indicators which will produce unequal results or measurement of globalization, this is known as unequal weighting.

Proxy indicators to measure abstract dimensions of globalization

3. With regards to the unit of analysis, what problems/challenges do existing globalization measurement approaches have? §

Differentiating the state level from group level, institutions level and from individual level have been a challenge to measuring globalization

We have to use multi indicators to analyze or put into different categories

• Connections at one level (state level)
• Multi scalar/layer analysis

4. According to the authors, how should globalization be measured? §

• interdisciplinary cooperation - complementary globalization indices
• Multi-layer analysis
  • Country A: state level, city level, individual level
  • Country B state level, city level, individual level

Reading 2 §

Measuring Globalization

We have to select real connections that represent globalizations (avoid selecting the bilateral/crossborder connections)