Globalization - definitions

The ongoing academic quarrel over the definition of globalization is a postmodern version of the parable of the blind monks and the elephant, in which each man reaches a different conclusion based on which part of the elephant he has examined.

Itcho Hanabusa - Blind monks examining an elephant

Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.

- Anthony Giddens

The concept of globalization reflects the sense of an immense enlargement of world communication, as well as of the horizon of a world market, both of which seem far more tangible and immediate than in earlier stages of modernity.

- Fredric Jameson

Globalization may be thought of as a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact-generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power.

- David Held

Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.

- Roland Robertson

Globalization compresses the time and space aspects of social relations.

- James Mittelman