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Unit 2 Essay: What are the three types of globalization discussed by Mintz, Close, and

Croci (2021)? Give examples of how a global pandemic like COVID-19 can either enhance

or hinder economic, cultural, and political globalization.

POLS 1502

Introduction to Political Studies

Dr. Patlee Creary

Viet Anh Bui

June 14, 2020

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Throughout the history of humankind, many political systems have been formed and

developed, including primitive communism dating back to the ancient period, self-governance by

people living in clans or tribes, and monarchy ruling kingdoms. However, most of these forms

have either ceased to exist or are only being applied by a limited number of nations. In the

contemporary world, the majority of remaining systems consist of sophisticated democratic

republics, constitutional monarchies, one-party states and even some outliers that do not fit into

any categories due to their transitional status or unclear political situations. Theoretically, each

nation having its distinct governing methods can create significant differences and cause

difficulties in general. However, the obstacles mentioned above are being minimized, especially

during the 21st century, as a result of globalization. According to Mintz, Close, and Croci (2021),

globalization is usually considered as an inevitable process that helps diminish the distances

between countries; or in other words, shrink the world. This emergence co-occurs in 3 aspects:

politics, economy and culture (Mintz, Close, & Croci, 2021). Despite having evolved

dramatically over the last few decades, this progress has had several periods of stagnation due to

external factors such as wars, financial crises or pandemics. COVID-19, discovered at the end of

2019, has spread globally in 2020 and has not had any signs of improving. By discussing various

examples, the negative impacts of such pandemics on globalization should be made apparent.

The first dimension of globalization is economic globalization. This term indicates an

unrestricted flow of goods, services, technology and information on an international scale.

National, regional, and local economies across the world become more integrated and

interdependent is also a part of economic globalization (Joshi, 2009). According to Gao (2000), a

factor that has accelerated this change is the formation of numerous agreements and

organizations, notably the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was later

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replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), an organ of the United Nations (UN). Under

the framework of such bodies, countries have gradually shifted from central planning to markets,

cut down their tariff and non-tariff barriers, as well as opened up their current and capital

accounts. In addition, economic globalization might not have been possible if not for the

advances in science and technologies. This is because, in the modern economy, information is

considered to be more important than physical capital (Gao, 2000). Due to the factors as

mentioned earlier, economic globalization itself has significantly increased the volume of traded

merchandise from only 16.7% of the global GDP in 1960 to 46.1% in 2018 (The World Bank,

2018). Additionally, countries can now focus on improving their products and services at a lower

cost, consumers have a greater variety of selection when purchasing for goods, and both

enterprises and governments have more sources of capital (Mintz, Close, & Croci, 2021).

Overall, with all the aforementioned examples, economic globalization is undeniably the most

crucial element of globalization since it directly affects both the macro and micro levels of

economies. However, apart from this, there are also two other significant aspects of globalization

to be discussed.

Political globalization is the second most essential factor in the modern world since

numerous issues can only be resolved effectively with the participation of different nations

instead of individual states alone. It is also worth noted that the development of international

agencies such as the United Nations or European Union also plays a decisive role in facilitating

political globalization. These agencies and their members have been jointly promoting human

rights, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping and other activities (Mintz, Close, & Croci, 2021).

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The final aspect of globalization is in terms of culture. That is the process of cultural

products and values spreading all over the world. However, this movement is usually regarded as

unidirectional since the majority of cultural values are initialized from the Western, especially

the American (Mintz, Close, & Croci, 2021). According to Steger (2010), McDonald’s and

Starbucks are usually cited as role models of globalization for multinational food and beverage

chains due to their success. However, eating habits of people living outside Western countries

have almost remained unchanged despite the exponential growth of such fast-food brands. Also,

in the reverse direction, sushi and curry restaurants in major cities cannot successfully stimulate

“Easternization” at the rate of their counterparts (Mintz, Close, & Croci, 2021). Finally, even

though culture is still a significant aspect when analyzing globalization, it has not been

researched extensively in comparison to economic or political globalization (Crane, 2011).

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has been dramatically

disrupted (The New York Times, 2020). According to Gopinath (2020), the world is

experiencing the most significant recession ever since the Great Depression dated back to the

1929 – 1939 period. The pandemic has caused supply shortages and destabilized other sectors of

the economy, such as stock markets, retailing, tourism and even the energy market. A clear

example of this is the unprecedented decrease in the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil

to a record low of minus 37.63 USD per barrel (Walker, 2020). Under the influence of COVID-

19, the results of globalization in terms of politics have also been reversed in different ways. For

example, the United States government has accused the Chinese government and the Chinese

Communist Party for covering up the outbreak in the critical early months (Lynch & Gramer,

2020). Additionally, according to BBC (2020), the United States was accused of diverting a

shipment of personal protective equipment, which was intended for the Berlin police force, to the

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United States. It can be seen that during such pandemics, the political globalization progress was

reversed as nations tend to compete against each other and, thus, deteriorate international

relations. Consequently, cultural globalization is not exempt from the effect of a global

pandemic. Numerous people, including political figures such as the US President Donald Trump,

labelled COVID-19 as “Chinese virus”. This action has led to an increase in racist abuse and

assault, specifically against Chinese and Asians in general (Tavernise & Oppel Jr., 2020).

Italians, whose country was the first to suffer a serious outbreak in Europe, were also targets of

suspicion and xenophobia.

In conclusion, globalization has successfully integrated different parts of the world in

terms of economy, politics and culture. Yet, it still consists of numerous drawbacks (raising

inequality, damaging the environment, etc.) and can be severely hindered during hardships such

as pandemics, crises or wars.

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Reference

BBC. (2020, April 4). Coronavirus: US accused of ‘piracy’ over mask ‘confiscation’. Retrieved

from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52161995

Crane, D. (2011). Cultural globalization: 2001 - 10. Retrieved from

https://www.academia.edu/download/31917813/Cultural_Globalization.pdf

Gao, S. (2000). Economic Globalization: Trends, Risks and Risk Prevention. Retrieved from The

United Nations:

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/cdp/cdp_background_papers/bp2000_1.

pdf

Gopinath, G. (2020, April 14). The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great

Depression. Retrieved from IMFBlog: https://blogs.imf.org/2020/04/14/the-great-

lockdown-worst-economic-downturn-since-the-great-depression/

Joshi, R. M. (2009). International Business. Oxford University Press .

Lynch, C., & Gramer, R. (2020, March 11). U.S. and China Turn Coronavirus Into a

Geopolitical Football. Retrieved from Foreign Policy:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-geopolitics-china-united-states-trump-

administration-competing-global-health-response/

Mintz, E., Close, D., & Croci, O. (2021). Politics, Power and the Common Good: An

Introduction to Political Science. Pearson Canada.

Stancati, M. (2020, February 28). Italians Are Being Treated as a Risk Abroad Over

Coronavirus. Retrieved from The Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/italians-are-being-treated-as-a-risk-abroad-over-

coronavirus-11582913454

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Steger, M. B. (2010). Globalization. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2010.

Tavernise, S., & Jr., R. A. (2020, March 23). Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans

Fear for Their Safety. Retrieved from The New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/chinese-coronavirus-racist-attacks.html

The New York Times. (2020, February 29). Here Comes the Coronavirus Pandemic: Now, after

many fire drills, the world may be facing a real fire. Retrieved from The New York

Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/opinion/sunday/corona-virus-usa.html

The World Bank. (2018). Merchandise trade (% of GDP). Retrieved from The World Bank:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TG.VAL.TOTL.GD.ZS?end=2018&start=1960

Walker, A. (2020, April 21). US oil prices turn negative as demand dries up. Retrieved from

BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52350082