Understanding Globalization: Waves, Factors, and Impact

Globalization is the process of progressive economic integration and increased interdependence, communication, and connectivity worldwide. The economies and companies of the world are in constant interaction.

Globalization Chronology

Second Globalization Wave: The most widely accepted chronology is from the 1970s and 1980s onwards.

A Timeline for the Globalization Process

The First Globalization Wave took place in the 19th century. At that time, the world underwent a phase characterized by an unprecedented mobility of labor, capital, and products. The process of building an international economy occurred in the course of the 19th century, but the specific chronology of the First Globalization Wave is, according to most authors, from 1850 to 1914. The First World War marked the end of that promising process. In the first half of the 20th century, the two World Wars prevented the rebuilding of the international economy.

However, from the fifties onwards, the process of constructing a global capitalist economy began to develop again. Conditions were once more favorable for the integration of factors (as had happened in the 19th century with the First Globalization), especially thanks to the breaking down of barriers between North America and Western Europe. But this process developed slowly because of two obstacles:

1. The strength of the communist block, which included important markets such as China and Russia.
2. The unwillingness of Japan, a lead player in the major economic miracle of that period, to accept the presence of multinationals within its borders.

For these reasons, it was not until the 1980s, and above all the 1990s, that the process of globalization was intensified, becoming a far more ambitious phenomenon, with a wider geographical scope, than that seen in the 19th century.

Key Factors Contributing to Globalization

• Improvements in transport
• Improvement in communication and transmission of information worldwide, in turn influenced by advancement in the infrastructure of telecommunications and the Internet
• Technological improvements in IT systems
• International organizations (IMF, World Bank…), and the activity of multinationals themselves

Factors That Prevent Globalization

• National cultures, which prevent the shaping of a uniform world