Institutionalist Approach to Globalization
Discussion
The Institutionalist Approach to Globalization
By George Modelski et al. :
"Globalization is transformational-institutional because it traces successive steps in what we might call the development of a planetary constitutional design. Where one millennium ago, the human species was recognizably organized in some four or five regional ensembles, with basically minimal mutual contact, and no organization, common rules, or knowledge, today information is abundant and low-cost, contacts have multiplied, and organization and rules dealing with collective problems are no longer exceptional. The institutions whereby human relate to each other have been undergoing a transformation at the planetary, but also at local, national, and regional levels. Globalization, finally, is also multidimensional. That is, it has no simple recipe for identifying “stages of world history,” such as slavery or capitalism. As generally recognized, it comprises not just the spectacular expansion, under the banner of free trade, of world commerce and of capital movements, with the large array of transnational enterprises, and the elaborate body of rules and regulations governing all of these. Globalization also concerns the rise of global social movements, and worldwide cultural trends, and the emergence of world opinion as conception of common interest, but most particularly in the context of this article it has a political dimension. But before we enter into a discussion of political globalization we need to review a few concepts basic to this analysis."