Module 1: The Structures and Globalization of World

Economics
1.1 Defining Globalization
The definition of Globalization is one of the greatest miracles or
phenomena in this world since in this particular event we see the so
called fusion of many continents, nations, nationalities from the different
parts of the globe to create a single international community connected
by modern technology. It links multi cultural people that aims to
promote the advancement of many essential field of specializations,
professions and industries.

The Story of Gio, Latif and the Laksa

Please watch the video about Gio, Latif and the Laksa and then see
how globalization works in the story.
Gio, Latif and the LaksaLinks to an external site.
The Global Experiences
Gio and Latif's story is fictional but very plausible since it is, in fact,
based on the real -life experience of one of the authors. it was through
such friendships that one was able to appreciate the meaning and impact
of globalization.
The story of Gio and Latif shows how globalization operates at
multiple, intersecting levels through mass media. For example, the spread
of Filipino TV in Malaysia suggests how fast this Filipino popular culture
has proliferated and crisscrossed all over Asia.
The Model UN activity that Gio and Latif participated in is an
international competition about international politics. Gio met Latif (a
Malaysian involved in the model UN) in Sydney, a global city that derives
its wealth and influence from the global capital that flows through it.
Sydney is also a metropolis of families of international immigrants or
foreigners working in the industries that also sell their products abroad.
After the two had gone back to their home countries, Gio and Latif kept in
touch through Facebook, a global social networking site that provides
instantaneous communication across countries and continents. They
preserved their friendship online and then rekindled this face-to-face in
Singapore, another hub for global commerce, with 40 percent of the
population being classified as "foreign talents."

Some Descriptions
Gio's story is a very privileged way of experiencing global flows, but
for other people, the shrinking of the world may not be as exciting and
edifying. For example, it common for young women in developing
countries to be recruited in the internet as "mail-order brides" for foreign
men living in other countries. After being promised a good life once
married to a kind husband in a rich city, they ended up becoming sexual
and domestic servants in foreign lands. Some were even sold off by their
"husbands" to gangs which run prostitute rings in these cities. Like Gio,
they too have experienced the shrinking of the world, albeit negatively.
Governments that decide to welcome foreign investments on the
belief that they provide jobs and capital for the country offer public lands
as factory or industrial sites. In the process, poor people living in these
land, also called "urban poor communities," are being evicted by the
government. The irony is that these people forcibly removed from their
"slums" are also the labor force sought by foreign companies. They had to
be kicked out of their homes, and then told that they could take an hour
or two of bus travel from their relocated communities back to the "old
home" for minimum-wage work. Different people encounter globalization
in a variety of ways.
1.2 The Structures of Globalization
The structure of globalization talks about the wheels of social sciences
such as Economics, Politics creating a common international community
or society connected by modern technology to connect the world's
continents with more than seven billion population. In history, we noticed
that nations are separated by different types of boundaries. Now we are
in the new age where mankind's existence on this planet is confronted by
many challenges and issues making the means of survival a little
complicated while challenging people around the globe.
People choose to cross seas, continents just to support life and with
the help of technology mankind was able to create devices that can
make people one. There is now the normal norm of transporting finished
goods and products from one place to another. People from different
places of the globe can now work and study from one place to another
and the sharing of cultures best practices from one place to another has
become easy like passing a ball from one team mate to another. Indeed,
globalization has become the special connecting device of multi-culture
and multi-practice of social science in this modern world.

Globalization: A Working Definition

 Most accounts view globalization as primarily an economic process.
When a newspaper reports that nationalists are resisting "globalization," it
usually refers to the integration of the national markets to a wider global
market signified by the increased free trade. When activists refer to the
"anti-globalization" movement of the 1990's they mean resisting the trade
deals among countries facilitated and promoted by global organizations
like the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Globalization scholars do not necessarily disagree with people who
criticize unfair international trade deals or global economic organizations.
In fact, many are sympathetic to the critique of economic globalization.
Academics differ from journalists and political activists, however, because
they see globalization in much broader terms.
The best scholarly description of globalization is provided by Manfred
Steger who described the process as "the expansion and intensification of
social relation and consciousness across world-time and across-space.
Expansion refers to both the creation of new social networks and the
multiplication of existing connections that cut across traditional political,
economic, cultural and geographic boundaries. Intensification refers to the
expansion, stretching and acceleration of these networks.
Steger posits that his definition of globalization must be differentiated
with the ideology he calls globalism. If globalization represents the many
processes that allow for the expansion and intensification of global
connections, globalism is a widespread belief among powerful people that
the global integration of economic markets is beneficial for everyone,
since it spreads freedom and democracy across the world.
For anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, different kinds of globalization
occur on multiple and intersecting dimensions of integration that he calls
"scapes." An "ethnoscape" for example refers to the global movement of
people, while "mediascape" is about the flow of culture. A "technoscape"
refers to the circulation of mechanical goods and software; a
"financescape" denotes the global circulation of money; and the
"ideoscape" is the realm where political ideas move around.
Appadurai's argument is simple: there are multiple globalizations.
Hence, even if one does not agree that globalization can be divided into
five "scapes," it is hard to deny Appadurai's central thrust of viewing
globalization through various lenses.
1.3 The Globalization of World Economics
International Trading System and the Bretton Woods System
Hi everyone! In this lesson, you will learn the historical background of
international trading system.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) regards "economic
globalization" as a historical process representing the result of human
innovation and technological progress. It is characterized by the
increasing integration of economies around the world through the
movement of goods, services, and capital across borders. These changes
are the products of people , organizations, institutions, and technologies.
As with all other processes of globalization, there is a qualitative and
subjective element to this definition.
Even while the IMF and ordinary people grapple with the difficulty of
arriving at precise definitions of globalization, they usually agree that a
drastic economic change is occurring throughout the world. According to
the IMF, the value of trade (goods and services) as percentage of world
GDP increased from 42.1 percent in 1980 to 62.1 percent in 2007.
Increased trade also means that investments are moving all over the
world at faster speeds. According to the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development (UNCTD), the amount of foreign direct
investments flowing across the world was $57 billion in 1982. By 2015,
the number was $1.76 trillion. These figures represent a drastic increase
in global trade in the span of just a few decades. It has happened not
even after one lifespan.
Apart from the sheer magnitude of commerce, we should also note the
increased speed and frequency of trading. These days, supercomputers
can execute millions of stock purchases and sales between different cities
in a matter of seconds through a process called high-frequency trading.

International Trading Systems

International trading systems are not new.

1. Silk Road - the oldest known international trade route. It refers to a

network of pathways in the ancient world that spanned from China to
Middle East and Europe. It was called as such because one of the most
profitable products traded through this network was silk, which was
highly prized especially in the area that is now the Middle East as well
as in the West (today's Europe) Traders used the Silk Road regularly
 from 130 BCE when the Chinese Han dynasty opened trade to the West
until 1453 BCE when the Ottoman Empire closed it.

2. Galleon Trade - According to historians Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo

Giraldez, the age of globalization began when "all important populated
continents began to exchange products continuously - both with each
other directly and indirectly via other continents - and in values
sufficient to generate crucial impact on all trading partners." Flynn and
Giraldez trace this back to 1571 with the establishment of the galleon
trade that connected Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico.
This was the first time that the Americas were directly connected to
Asian trading routes. For Filipinos, it is crucial to note that economic
globalization began on the country's shore. The galleon trade was part
of the age of mercantilism.

3. Gold Trade - A more open trade system emerged in 1867 when,

following the lead of the United Kingdom, the United states and other
European nations adopted the gold standard at an international
monetary conference in Paris. Broadly, the goal was to create a
common system that would allow for more efficient trade and prevent
the isolationism of the mercantilist era. The countries thus established
a common basis for currency prices and a fixed exchange rate system -
all based on the value of gold.
 4. Fiat currencies- These are currencies that are not backed by precious
metals and whose value is determined by their cost relative to other
currencies. It also refers to a system in 20th century that allows
governments to freely and actively manage their economies by
increasing or decreasing the amount of money in circulation as they
see fit.

The Bretton Woods System (BWS)

After the two world wars, world leaders sought to create a global
economic system that would ensure a longer-lasting global peace. They
believe that one of the ways to achieve this goal was to set up a network
of global financial institutions that would promote economic
interdependence and prosperity. The Bretton Woods system was
inaugurated in 1944 during the United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference to prevent the catastrophes of the early decades of the
century from recurring and affecting international ties.
The Bretton Woods System was largely influenced by the ideas of
British Economist John Maynard Keynes who believed that economic crises
occur not when a country does not have enough money, but when money
is not being spent and, thereby, not moving. When economies slow down,
according to Keynes, governments have to reinvigorate markets with
infusion of capital. This active role of governments in managing spending
served as the anchor for what would be called a system of global
Keynesianism.
Two Financial Institutions created during the Bretton Woods Conference:

1. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or World

Bank) is responsible for funding a reconstruction projects of countries
affected by world wars.
2. International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a lending institution that helps
each country to recover from financial crises.

Neoliberalism and its Discontents

Keynesianism is an economic theory that assumed three things 1)
Economic crisis occur when a country does not have enough money, but
when money is not being spent and, thereby, not moving 2) If the
economies slow down then government should infuse money to
reinvigorate the market 3) Proponent argued that as prices increased,
companies would earn more, and would have more money to hire
workers.
Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman challenged the Keynesian theory and
argued that government intervention in economies distort the proper
functioning of the market.
The Washington consensus advocates for minimal government spending
to reduce government debt. They also called for the privatization of
government-controlled services like water, power, communications and
transport, believing that the free market can produce the best result.

The Global Financial Crisis and the Challenge to Neoliberalism

Neo-liberalism came under significant strain during the global financial
crisis 2007-2008 when the world experienced the greatest economic
downturn since the great depression. The crisis can be traced back to the
1980s when the United State systematically removed various banking and
investment restrictions. Financial experts wrongly assumed that even if
many of the borrowers were individuals and families who would struggle
to pay, a majority would not default. The crisis spread beyond the United
States since many investors were foreign governments, corporations and
individuals. The loss of their money spread like wildfire back to their
countries.

Economic Globalization Today

"The world has become too integrated. Whatever one's opinion about the
Washington Consensus is, it is undeniable that some form of international
trade remains essential for countries to develop in the contemporary
world." Export, not just the local selling of goods and services, make
national economies grow at present. In the past, those that benefited the
most from free trade were the advanced nations that were producing and
selling industrial and agricultural products.
In the recent decades, partly as a result of these increased export,
economic globalization has ushered in an unprecedented spike in global
growth rates.
Economic globalization remains an uneven process, with some countries,
corporations and individual benefiting a lot more that others". (Claudio et
al. 2018) The beneficiaries of global commerce have been mainly
transnational corporations (TNCs) and not government.

Module 2: The History of Global Politics and The United

Nations

2.1 A History of Global Politics

In this lesson, you will learn the historical background of global politics.
I'm sure you are excited to have a glimpse of global politics that leads to
the creation of international order. Relax and enjoy the lesson!
The world is composed of many countries or states, all of them
having different forms of government. Some scholars of politics are
interested in individual states and examine the international politics of
these countries. For example, a scholar is studying politics of Japan may
write about the history of its bureaucracy. Other scholars are more
interested in the interactions between states rather than their internal
politics. These scholars look at trade between deals between states. They
also study political, military and other diplomatic engagements between
two or more countries. These scholars are studying international
relations. Moreover when they explore the deepening of interactions
between states, they refer to the phenomenon of internationalization.
How does internationalization differ from globalization of politics?
Internationalization refers to the deepening of interactions between
states. Globalization of politics refers to the multiple interactions or
relations between states.
According to Claudio et al. (2018, p. 27), there are four attributes of
today's global system.

1. There are countries or states that are independent and govern

themselves.
2. Countries interact with each other through diplomacy.
3. There are international organizations, like the United Nations
(UN) that facilitate the interactions.
4. International organizations also take on lives of their own.

How did global system originate?

1. Village/Tribe- people in various regions of the world were

identified according to respective units.
2. Christian world - started by apostles of Jesus Christ until
Christianity became a state religion.
3. Nation-State - refers to state governing a nation.

What is the difference between nation and state?

State refers to a country and its government. It has four attributes: 1)
It exercises authority over a specific population (citizens). 2) It governs a
specific territory 3) It has a structure of government 4) It has sovereignty
over its territory.
Nation is defined as an "imagined community" or group of people who
shared a common culture, language, history etc. (Benedict Anderson)
The Interstate System
The origins of the present-day concept of sovereignty can be traced
back to the Treaty of Westphalia, which was a set of agreements signed in
1648 to end the Thirty Years' War between the major continental powers
of Europe. After the brutal religious war between Catholics and
Protestants, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden, and the
Dutch Republic designed a system that would avert wars in the future by
recognizing that the treaty signers exercise complete control over their
domestic affairs and swear not to meddle in each other's affairs.

1. Westphalian system - a system that gives stability to European

nations through direct control of their domestic activities - free
from interference of other nations.
2. Napoleonic Code - a principle that spread "liberty", "equality" and
"fraternity" as themes for creation of new form of government in
France.
3. Metternich system- an alliance of "great powers" - United
Kingdoms, Austria, and Prussia that restored monarchical,
hereditary, and religious privileges of rulers.

Internationalism
Internationalism is an imagined system of heightened interaction between
various sovereign states particularly the desire for greater cooperation
and unity among states and people. It comes in different forms, but the
principle may be divided into two broad categories: liberal
internationalism and socialist internationalism.
Liberal internationalism
Achievement: Foundation of United Nation
Proponents:

1. Immanuel Kant - argues that citizens in the state must give up

some freedom and establish a continuously growing state
consisting of various nations which will ultimately include the
nations of the world". Since, if there is no form of world
government then international system will be chaotic.
2. Jeremy Bentham- says that the objectives of the global
legislators should aim to propose legislation that would create "
the greatest happiness of all nations taken together".
3. Giuseppe Mazzini- believes that free, unified nation-state should
be the basis of global cooperation.
4. Woodrow Wilson- forwarded the principle of self-determination
and advocate for the creation of League of Nations to prevent a
world war II.

Socialist internationalism
Achievement: Declaration of International women's Day and Labor Day

1. Karl Marx -claimed a premium economic equality among the

classes of citizens in the world.
2. Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx established a socialist revolution
through a battle cry "Workers of the world, Unite! you have
nothing to lose but your chains."
 3. Vladimir Lenin - established the communist international
(Comintern) in 1919 to serve as central body for directing
communist parties all over the world.
4. Stalin re-stablished the Comintern as Communist Information
Bureau (Cominform) in order to direct the various communist
parties that had taken power in Eastern Europe.

This lesson examined the roots of the international system. In tracing

these roots, a short history of internationalism was provided. Moreover,
internationalism is but one window into the broader phenomenon of
globalization. Nevertheless, it is a very crucial aspect of globalization
since global interactions are heightened by the increased
interdependence of states. This increased interdependence manifests
itself not just through state-to-state relations. Increasingly, international
relations are also facilitated by international organizations that promote
global norms and policies. The most prominent example of this
organization, of course, is the United Nations.
2.2 The Roles and Functions of the United Nations

What is an International Organization?

When scholars refer to the groups like the UN or institutions like the IMF
and the World Bank, they usually call them international organization.
International Organization (IO) refers to international intergovernmental
organization or groups that are primarily made up of member-states.
International relations scholars Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore
listed the following powers of IOs.

1. IOs have the power of classification.

2. IOs have the power to fix meanings.
3. IOs have the power to diffuse norms.

The United Nations

After the collapse of the League of Nations at the end of World War II,
countries that worried about another global war began to push for the
formation of a more lasting international league. The result was the
creation of the United Nations on October 24,1945. Although the
organization is far from perfect, it should be emphasized that it has so
far achieved its primary goal of averting another global war. And
because of this reason the United Nations should be considered as a
success.
Five active Organs of the United Nations:
1. General Assembly (GA)
2. Security Council (SC)
3. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
4. International Court of Justice (ICJ)
5. Secretariat -UN Admin
The General Assembly (GA) is the United Nations' main deliberative
policy making and representative organ. According to the its charter,
the decisions on important questions such as those on peace and
security, admission of new members and budgetary matters. require a
two thirds majority of the General Assembly. Decisions on other
questions are done by a simple majority. Annually, the General assembly
elects a GA president to serve a one year term of office. All member-
states, currently at 193, have seats in the GA. The Philippines played a
prominent role in the GA's early years when a Filipino diplomat named
Carlos P. Romulo was elected GA President from 1949-1950.
Although the GA is the most representative organization in the
United Nations, many commentators consider the U.N. Security Council
(SC) as the most powerful. According to the U.N., this body consists of
15 member states. the G.A. elects ten of these 15 to two-year terms.
The Five Permanent Members of the U.N. Security Council are -
1. The United States of America
2. China
3. Russia
4. France
5. The United Kingdom
The above-mentioned states are permanent members since the
founding of the United Nations and cannot be replaced through
election. The SC takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat
to the peace or an act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute
to settle the act by peaceful means and recommends methods of
adjustment or terms of settlement. In some cases, it can resort to
imposing sanctions or even authorizing the use of force to maintain or
restore international peace and security. Because of these powers, states
that seek to intervene militarily in another state need to obtain the
approval of the SC. With the SC'S approval, a military intervention may
be deemed legal. This is an immense power.
The third UN organ is the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
which is the "principal body for coordination, policy review, policy
dialogue, and recommendations on social and environmental issues, as
well as the implementation of internationally agreed development goals."
It has 54 members elected for three-year terms. Currently it is the UN's
central platform for discussion on sustainable development.
The fourth is the International Court of Justice whose task "is to settle,
in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by
states and to give advisory opinions referred to it by authorized United
Nations' organs and specialized agencies.
Finally, the secretariat consists of the "Secretary-General and tens of
thousands of international UN staff who carry out the day-to-day work of
the UN as mandated by the General Assembly and the organization's
other principal organs."

Challenges of the United Nations

The United Nations is not a world government and it functions
primarily because of voluntary cooperation from states. If states refuse
to cooperate, the influence of the UN can be severely circumscribed.
Perhaps, the biggest challenge of the United Nations is related to the
issues of security.
The UN Security Council is tasked with authorizing international acts
of military intervention. Because of the P5's veto power, it is tough for the
Council to release a formal resolution, much more implement it. This
became an issue, for example, in the late 1990s when the United States
sought to intervene in the Kosovo war.
On September 2005, the Philippines was part of the powerful U.N Security
council as one of the 10 non-permanent members. The Philippines served as the
chair/head of the UN Security Council. In the file photo, then Philippine President
Gloria Arroyo was presiding the UN Security Council meeting - one of the shining
moments in our nation's history.

Module 2 Summary
This lesson examined the roots of the international system. In tracing
these roots, a short history of internationalism was provided. Moreover,
internationalism is but one window into the broader phenomenon of
globalization. Nevertheless, it is a very crucial aspect of globalization
since global interactions are heightened by the increased
interdependence of states. This increased interdependence manifests
itself not just through state-to-state relations. Increasingly, international
relations are also facilitated by international organizations that promote
global norms and policies. The most prominent example of this
organization, of course, is the United Nations.
Global governance is such a complex issue that one can actually
teach an entire course in itself. This lesson has focused on the IOs and
the United Nations in particular. International organizations are
highlighted because they are the most visible symbols of global
governance. The UN, in particular, is the closest to a world government.
What is important to remember is that international institutions like the
UN are always in a precarious position. On the one hand, they are groups
of sovereign states. On the other, they are organizations with their own
rationalities and agendas. It is this tension that will continue to inform the
evolution of these organizations. However, note that there are many
institutions, groups, and ideas that hold international and global politics
together. In your own time, you may want to explore these topics on your
own.

Module 3: Media and Globalization and The

Globalization of Religion
3.1 The Media and Globalization

Globalization entails the spread of various cultures. When a film is made

in Hollywood, it is shown not only in the United States, but also in other
cities across the globe. Globalization also involves the spread of ideas.
For example, the notion of the rights of lesbian, gay bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) communities is spreading across the world and
becoming more widely accepted. Similarly, the conservative Christian
Church that opposes these rights moves from places like South America to
Korea and to Burundi in Africa. People who travel the globe teaching and
preaching their beliefs in universities, churches, public forums,
classrooms, or even as guests of a family play a major role in the spread
of culture and ideas. But today, television programs, social media groups,
books, movies, magazines, and the like have made it easier for advocates
to reach larger audiences. Globalization relies on media as its main
conduit for the spread of global culture and ideas. There is an intimate
relationship between globalization and media which must be unraveled to
further understand the contemporary world.

Media and Its Functions

Jack Lule describes media as "a means of conveying something such
as a channel of communication." Technically speaking, a person's voice is
a medium. However, when commentators refer to "media" (the plural of
medium) they mean the technologies of mass communication. Print media
include books, magazines, and newspapers. Broadcast media involve
radio, film, and television. Finally, digital media cover the internet and
mobile mass communication. Within the category of internet media, there
are e-mail, internet sites, social media, and internet-based video and
audio.
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan once declared that "the medium is
the message." He did not mean that ideas ("messages") are useless and
do not affect people. Rather, his statement was an attempt to draw
attention to how media, as a form of technology, reshape societies. Thus,
television is not a simple bearer of messages, it also shapes the social
behavior of users and reorient family behavior. Today, the smart phones
allows users to keep in touch instantly with multiple people at the same
time. Consider the effect of the internet on relationship. Prior to the
cellphone, there was no way for couples to keep constantly in touch, or to
be updated on what the other does all the time. The technology (medium)
and not the message, makes for this social change possible. Cellphones,
on one hand, expand people's senses because they provide the capability
to talk to more people instantaneously and simultaneously. On the other
hand, they also limit the senses because they make users easily
distractible and more prone to multitasking. This is not necessarily a bad
thing; it is merely change with a trade-off.
Marshall McLuhan asked whether how media, as a form of
communication, reshape the society. Media has both positive and
negatives effects. On one hand, one of the positives effects of media is to
expand the reach of communication. On the other hand, one of the
negative effects of media is to amputate and limit human senses.
The Global Village and Cultural Imperialism
McLuhan used his analysis of technology to examine the impact of
electronic media. He declared that television was turning the world into a
"global village." By this, he meant that as more and more people sat down
in front of their television sets and listened to the same stories, their
perception of the world would contract. If tribal villages once sat in front of
fires to listen to collective stories, the members of the new global village
would sit in front of bright boxes in their living rooms.
In the years after McLuhan, media scholars grappled with the
challenges of a global media culture. A lot of these early thinkers
assumed that global media had a tendency to homogenize culture. They
argued that as global media spread, people from all over the world would
begin to watch, listen to, and read the same things. Commentators
believed that media globalization coupled with American hegemony
would create a form of cultural imperialism whereby American values and
culture would overwhelm all others. Herbert Schiller argued that not only
was the world being Americanized, but this process also led to the spread
of "American" capitalist values like consumerism.
Critiques of Cultural Imperialism
Proponents of the idea of cultural imperialism ignored the fact that
media messages are not just made by producers, they are also consumed
by audiences. Media scholars began to pay attention to the ways in which
audiences understood and interpreted media messages. The field of
audience studies emphasizes that ,media consumers are active
participants in the meaning-making process, who view media "texts" (in
media studies, a "text" simply refers to the content of any medium)
through their own cultural lenses.
Apart from the challenge of audience studies, the cultural imperialism
thesis has been belied by the renewed strength of regional trends in the
globalization process. Asian culture, for example, has proliferated
worldwide through the globalization of media. Japanese brands- from hello
kitty to the Mario Brothers to Pokémon- are now an indelible part of global
popular culture. The same can be said for Korean Pop (K-pop_ and Korean
telenovelas, which are widely successful regionally and globally. The
observation eve applies to culinary taste. The most obvious case of
globalized Asian cuisine is sushi. And while it is true that McDonald's has
continued to spread across Asia, it is also the case that Asian brands have
provided stiff competition. The Philippines' Jollibee claims to be the
number one choice for fast food in Brunei.
Social Media and the Creation of Cyber Ghettoes
As with all new media, social media have both beneficial and negative
effects. These form of communication have democratized access. Anyone
with an internet connection or a smart phone can use Facebook and
Twitter for free. These media have enabled users to be consumers and
producers of information simultaneously.
The dark side of social media shows that even a seemingly open and
democratic media may be co-opted towards undemocratic means. Global
online propaganda will be the biggest threat to face a the globalization of
media deepens. As consumers of media, users must remain vigilant and
learn how to distinguish fact from falsehood. People must be critical of
mainstream media and traditional journalism that may also operate based
on vested interest.
3.2 The Globalization of Religion
Religion, much more with the culture, has the most difficult relationship
with globalism. The two are entirely contrasting belief systems. Religion
is always concerned with with the sacred while the globalism places
value on material wealth. Religion follows divine commandments, while
globalism abides by human -made laws. Religion assumes that there is
the possibility of communication between humans and the transcendent.
This link between the human and the divine confers some social power
on the latter. Furthermore "God," "Allah," or "Yahweh" defines and
judges human action in moral terms (good vs bad). Globalism's
yardstick, however, is how much of human action can lead to the
highest material satisfaction and subsequent wisdom that this new
status produces.
Religious people are less concerned with wealth and all that comes
along with it like (higher social status, a standard of living similar with
that of the rest of the community, exposure to "culture," top-of-the-line
education for the children). They are ascetics precisely because they shun
anything material for complete simplicity - from their domain to the
clothes they wear, to the food they eat, and even to the manner in which
they talk (lots of parables and allegories that are supposedly the language
of the divine)
A religious person's main duty is to live a virtuous, sinless life such
that when she/he dies he/she is assured of a place in heaven. On the
other hand, globalist are less worried about whether they will end up in
heaven or hell. Finally religion and globalism clash over the fact that
religious evangelization is in itself a form of globalization. The globalist
idea is largely focused on the realm of markets. The religious is always
concerned with spreading holy ideas globally, while the globalist wishes
to spread goods and services.
Religion regard identities associated with with globalism (citizenship,
language, and race) as inferior and narrow because they are earthly
categories. In contrast, membership to a religious group, organization, or
cult represents a superior affiliation that connects human directly to the
divine and the supernatural. Being a Christian, a Muslim, or as Buddhist
places one in a higher plane than just being a Filipino, a Spanish speaker,
or an Anglo-Saxon. These philosophical differences explain why certain
groups "flee" their communities and create impenetrable sanctuaries
where they can practice their religions without the meddling ang control
of state authorities.

Realities
In actuality, the relationship between religion and globalization is much
more complicated. Peter Burger argues that far from being secularized,
the "contemporary world is... furiously religious. In most of the world,
there are veritable explosions of religious fervor, occurring in one form of
another in all the major religious traditions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Confucianism- and in may places in
imaginative syntheses of one or more world religions with indigenous
faith.
Religions are the foundations of modern republics. The Malaysian
government places religion at the center of the political system. Its
constitution explicitly states that "Islam is the religion of the Federation,"
and the rulers of each state was also the "Head of the religion of Islam."
The late Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, bragged
about the superiority of Islamic rule over its secular counterparts and
pointed out that "there is no fundamental distinction among
constitutional, despotic, dictatorial, democratic, and communistic
regimes." To Khomeini, all secular ideologies were the same- they were all
flawed - and Islamic rule was the superior form of government because it
was spiritual. Yet, Iran calls itself a republic, a term that is associated with
the secular.
Religious movements do not hesitate to appropriate secular themes
and practices. In other cases, religion was the result of a shift in state
policy.
Religion for and against Globalization
There is hardly a religious movement today that does not use religion
to oppose "profane" globalization. Yet, two of the so-called "old world
religions" - Christianity and Islam - see globalization less as an obstacle
and more as an opportunity to expand their reach all over the world.
Globalization has "freed" communities from the "constraints of the nation-
state," but in the process, also threatened to destroy the cultural system
that bind them together. Religion seeks to take the place of these broken
"traditional ties" to either help the community cope with their new
situation or organize them to oppose this major transformation of their
lives.
Religion is thus not the "regressive force" that stops or slows down
globalization; it is "pro-active force" that give communities a new and
powerful basis of identity. Religious fundamentalism may dislike
globalization's materialism, but it continues to use "the full range of
modern means of communication and organization" that is associated
with this economic transformation.
Module 3 Summary
This lesson showed that different media have diverse effects on
globalization processes. At one point, it seemed that global television was
creating a global monoculture. Now, it seems more likely that social media
will splinter cultures and ideas into bubbles of people who do not interact.
Societies can never be completely prepared for the rapid changes in the
systems of communication. Every technological change, after all, creates
multiple unintended consequences. Consumers and users of media will
have a hard time turning back the clock.
As Peter Bayer and Lori Beaman observed, "Religion, it seems, is
somehow outside looking at globalization as problem or
potential. Religion, being a belief system that cannot be empirically
proven is, therefore, anathema to modernization. The thesis that
modernization will erode religious practice is often called secularization
theory.
Religion also plays an important role in the rampage of globalization,
religion plays the importance of the values, spiritual direction of the
world's more than 7 billion population. Religion being the strongest
prerequisite of any human values is also slowly being altered by
globalization as it creates some liberal modifications of many religious
practices.

Module 4: A World of Regions and The Global City

4.1 A World of Regions
In this lesson, you will be amazed on how the world composed of various
regions interact with one another. The picture tells us about countries that
responded to the demand of globalization; these countries were grouped
into regions desiring to promote unity and cooperation in economic and
political, health, culture and other regional developments. Enjoy the
lesson as you learn something new!
Governments, associations, societies, and groups form regional
organizations and/ or networks as a way of coping with the challenges of
globalization. Globalization has made people aware of the world in
general, but it has also made Filipinos more cognizant of specific areas
such as Southeast Asia. While regionalism is often seen as a political and
economic phenomenon, the term actually encompasses a broader area. It
can be examined in relation of identities, ethics, religion, ecological
sustainability and health. Regionalism is also a process and must be
treated as an "emergent, socially constituted phenomenon." It means that
regions are not natural or given; rather, they are constructed and defined
by policymakers, economic actors, and even social movements.
Edward D. Mansfield and Helen V. Milner state that economic and
political definitions of regions vary, but there are certain basic features
that everyone can agree on. First, regions are "a group of countries
located in the same geographically specified area" or are "an
amalgamation of two regions or a combination of more than two regions."
Second, the words regionalization and regionalism should not be
interchanged, as the former refers to the "regional concentration of
economic flows" while the latter is "a political process characterized by
economic policy cooperation and coordination among countries."
How do countries in the region respond economically and politically to
globalization?

1. China offers man power and low wages to workers to attract

investors.
2. Singapore and Switzerland developed their countries into
financial and banking hubs.

Countries also form regional organizations to pool their resources, get

better returns for their experts as well as expand their leverage against
trading partners. For example, the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to regulate the production and sale of oil.
This regional alliance flexed its muscles in the 1970s when its member
countries took over domestic production and dictated crude oil prices in
the world market. In a word highly dependent on oil, this integration
became a source of immense power. OPEC's success convinced nine
other oil-producing countries to join it.

State Regionalism
Most countries formed a regional alliance for various reasons. According
to Claudio and Abinales, there are common reasons why state leaders in
the countries formed a region.

1. For military defense . North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was

founded by the Western European countries and United States of
America during the Cold War to protect Europe against the Soviet
Union while the Soviet Union created a regional alliance known as
Warsaw Pact alliance composed of Eastern European countries.
2. To pool their resources, get better returns for their exports as
well as expand their leverage against trading partners. The
organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded
in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to regulate
the production and sale of oil. The OPEC power was felt in 1970s when
the production and price of oil was controlled by the said organization.
3. To protect their independence from the pressure of the super
politics. The Non-Align Movement was founded by the president of
Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia and Yugoslavia to establish world
peace, international cooperation, human rights, national sovereignty,
racial and national equality, non-intervention and peaceful conflict
resolution. It called itself non-aligned because the association refused
to side with either the First World capitalist democracies in Western
Europe and North America or the communist states in eastern Europe.
4. Economic crisis compels countries to come together. The Thai
economy collapsed in 1996 after foreign currency speculators and
troubled international banks demanded that the Thai government pay
back its loans. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) tried to reverse
 the crisis, but it was only after the ASEAN countries along with china,
Japan and South Korea agreed to establish an emergency fund to
anticipate a crisis that the Asian economies established. The crisis
made the ASEAN more "unified and coordinated." The Association has
come a long way since it was formed as a coalition of countries which
were pro-American and supportive of the United States intervention in
Vietnam. After the Vietnam war, ASEAN continued to act as a military
alliance to isolate Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia, but there were
also the beginnings of economic cooperation.

Non State Regionalism

Although state regionalism is very popular in advancing regional economic
and political stability, non state regionalism nowadays is also gaining its
presence in addressing the common problems confronted by the region in
term of economic, politics, health, culture, environment and ect.
Claudio and Abinales identified some forms and examples of Non State
Regionalism;

1. Non State regionalism varies in forms. First, There are tiny

associations that focus on a single issue or huge intercontinental
unions that address a multitude of common problems. Second,
organizations representing the non state regionalism rely on the power
of individuals, NGOs, Non-Government Organizations and other
associations. Third, non-state regionalism is identified with reformists
who shared the values.
2. Non State regionalism has different strategies and
tactics. Some organizations partner with governments to social
change. For examples, Citizen Diplomacy Forum (CDF) tries to
influence the policies and programs of the organizations of American
[Link]
crimination,uphold political freedom, promote democracy and human
rights through out the region.
3. Regional organizations dedicate themselves to specialized
causes. For examples, First, Rain forest Foundation was established to
protect the indigenous people and the forest in Brazil, Guyana, Panama
and Peru. Second, Regional Interfaith Youth Networks was formed to
promote conflict prevention, resolution, peace education and
sustainable development. Third, Migrant Forum in Asia is committed to
protect and promote the rights and welfare of migrant workers.
4. Non state regionalism differs from state regionalism in
identifying social problems. For instance, states treat poverty or
environmental degradation as technical or economic issues that can be
resolved by refining the existing programs of the state agencies,
making minor changes in economic policies and creating offices that
address these issues. While non state regionalism advocated these
issues as reflections of flawed development and environmental
models.
Contemporary Challenges to Regionalism

 Regionalism faces multiple challenges, the most serious of which is the

resurgence of militant nationalism and populism.
 ASEAN members continue to disagree over the extent to which
member countries should sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of
regional stability.
 A final challenge pertains to differing visions of what regionalism
should be for.
 Western governments may see regional organizations not simply as
economic formations but also as instruments of political
democratization.
 Singapore, China, and Russia see democracy as an obstacle to the
implementation and deepening of economic globalization because
constant public inquiry about economic projects and lengthy debate
slow down implementation or lead to unclear outcomes.

4.2 The Global City

Hello everyone! This lesson will give you a tour on various global cities
around the globe. I hope you will enjoy your journey from one global city
to another. Enjoy the lesson!
If you had the chance, would you move to New York? Tokyo? How
about Sydney? Chances are many of us would probably like to move to
these major cities. And if not, you would probably like to visit them
anyway. Not all people have been to global cities, but most know about
them. Their influence extends even to one's imagination.
Why Study Global Cities?
First, globalization is spatial because it occurs in physical spaces. You
can see it when foreign investments and capital move through a city, and
when companies build skyscrapers. People who are working in these
businesses - or Filipinos working abroad - start to purchase or rent high-
rise condominium units and better homes. As all these events happen,
more poor people are driven out of city centers to make way for the new
developments. Second, globalization is spatial because what makes it
move is the fact that it is based in places. Los Angeles, the home of
Hollywood, is where movies are made for global consumption. The main
headquarters of Sony is in Tokyo and from there the company coordinates
the sale of its various electronics goods to branches across the world.
In other words, cities act on globalization and globalization acts on
cities. They are the sites as well as the mediums of globalization. Just as
internet enables and shapes global forces, so too do cities. In the years to
come, more and more people experience globalization through cities. In
1950, only 30 percent of the world lived in urban areas. By 2014, that
number increased to 54 percent. And by 2050, it is expected to reach 66
percent.
Defining the Global City

Issues Illustrated: Global CitiesLinks to an external site.

Sociologist Saskia Sassen popularized the term "global city" in the 1990s.
Her criteria for what constitutes a global city were primarily economic. In
her work, she initially identified three global cities: New York, London and
Tokyo, all of which are hubs of global finance and capitalism. They are the
homes, for instance, of the world's top stock exchanges where investors
buy and sell shares in major corporations.

 New York has the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

 London has the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE.
 Tokyo has Nikkei.

Indicators for Globality

 So what are the multiple attributes of the global city? The foremost
characteristic is economic power.
 Economic opportunities in a global city make it attractive to talents
from across the world.
 To measure the economic competitiveness of a city, The Economist
Intelligence Unit has added other criteria like market size, purchasing
power of citizens, size of the middle class, and potential for growth.
 Global cities are are centers of authority.
 The cities that house major international organizations may also be
considered centers of political influence.
 Finally, global cities are centers of higher learning and culture.

The Challenges of Global Cities

 Global cities conjure up images of fast-paced, exciting, cosmopolitan

lifestyles.
 Global cities also have undersides.
 They can be sites of great inequality and poverty as well as
tremendous violence. Like the broader processes of globalization,
global cities create winners and losers.
 Cities, especially those with global influence, are obvious targets for
terrorists due to their high populations and their role as symbols of
globalization that many terrorists despise.
The Global City and the Poor People
In places like Mumbai, Jakarta, and Manila, it is common to find
gleaming buildings alongside massive shantytowns. This duality may even
be seen in rich, urban cities. In the outskirts of New York and San
Francisco are poor urban enclaves occupied by African-Americans and
immigrant families who are often denied opportunities at a better life. As
a city attracts more capital and richer residents, real estate prices go up
and poor residents are forced to relocate to far away but cheaper areas.
This phenomenon of driving out the poor in favor or newer, wealthier
residents is called gentrification.
In Australian cities, poor aboriginal Australians have been most
acutely affected by this process. Once living in public urban housing, they
were forced to move farther away from city centers that offer more jobs,
more government services, and better transportation due to
gentrification. in France, poor Muslim migrants are forced out of Paris and
have clustered around ethnic enclaves known as banlieue. In most of the
world's global cities, the middle class is also thinning out. Globalization
creates high-income jobs that are concentrated in global cities. A large
global city may thus be a paradise for some, but a purgatory for others.
Module 4 Summary
To wrap up the discussion, you learned in this lesson the difference
between countries, region and globalization, state regionalism, non state
regionalism and challenges of regionalism. You noticed that countries
responded differently to the challenges of globalization while regions were
also formed to address the problems confronted by the regions. In
confronting the regional problems, state and non state regionalism
emerged to promotes the common good and protect the interest of the
region. However, the world region encountered challenges that each
member country can look into.
Global cities, as noted in this lesson are sites and mediums of
globalization. They are, therefore, material representations of the
phenomenon. Through them, we see the best of globalization; they are
places that create exciting fusions of culture and ideas. They are also
places that generate tremendous wealth. However, they remain sites of
great inequality, where global servants serve global entrepreneurs. The
question of how globalization can be made more just is partly a question
of how people make their cities more just.

Module 5: Global Demography and Global Migration

5.1 Global Demography
When couples are asked why they have children, their answers are
almost always about their feelings. For most, having a child is the symbol
of a successful union. It also ensures that the family will have a successor
of generation that will continue its name. The kinship is preserved, and
the family's story continues. A few, however, worry how much strain a
child can bring to the household as he/she ''competes'' for the parents
attention and in reverse how much energy the family needs to shower its
love to an additional member. Viewed from above, however having or not
having children is mainly driven by economics. Behind the laughter or the
tears lies the question, will the child be an economic asset or a burden to
the family?
Rural communities often welcome an extra hand to help in crop
cultivation, particularly during planting and harvesting season. Urbanized,
educated, and professional families with two incomes, however, desire
just one or two progenies. With each partner tied down, or committed to
his/ her respective profession, neither has the time to devote to having a
kid, much more to parenting. Rural families view multiple children and
large kinship networks as critical investments.
Urban populations have grown, but not necessarily because families
are having more children. It is rather the combination of the natural
outcome of significant migration to the cities by people seeking work in
the "more modern" sectors of society. This movement of people is
especially manifested in the developing countries where industries and
businesses in the cities are attracting more people from the rural areas.
International migration also plays a part. Today, 191 million people
live in countries other than their own, and the United Nations projects that
over 2.2 million will move from the developing world to the First World
countries.

The "Perils" of Overpopulation

Development planners see urbanization and industrialization as
indicators of a developing society, but disagree on the role of population
growth or decline in modernization. This lengthy discussion brings back
ideas of British scholar Thomas Malthus who warned in his 1798 "An Essay
on the the Principle of Population" that population growth will inevitably
exhaust world food supply by the middle of the 19th century.
Malthus' prediction was off base, but it was revived in the late 1960s
when American biologist Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, wrote The
Population Bomb, which argued that overpopulation in the 1970s and the
1980s will bring about global environmental disasters that would, in turn,
lead to food shortage and mass starvation. They proposed that countries
like the United states take the lead in the promotion of global population
control in order to reduce the growth rate to zero. Their recommendations
ranged from the bizarre (chemical castration) to the policy-oriented
(taxing an additional child and luxury taxes on child related products) to
monetary incentives (paying off men who would agree to be sterilized
after two children) to institution-building (a powerful Department of
Population and Environment).
There was some reason for this fear to persist. The rate of global
population increase was at its highest between 1955 and 1975 when
nations were finally able to return to normalcy after the devastations
wrought by World War II. The growth rate rose from 1.8 percent per year
from 1955 to 1975, peaking at 2.06 percent annual growth rate between
1965 and 1970. By limiting the population, vital resources could be used
for economic progress and not be "diverted" and "wasted" to feeding
more mouths. In the mid-20th century, the Philippines, China, and India
sought to lower birth rates on the belief that unless controlled, the free
expansion of family members would lead to a crisis in resources, which in
turn may result in widespread poverty, mass hunger, and political
instability.
As early as 1958, the American policy journal, Foreign Affairs, had
already advocated "contraception and sterilization" as the practical
solutions to global economic, social,, and political problems. In May 2009,
a group of American billionaires warned of how a "nightmarish" explosion
of people was "a potentially disastrous environmental, social, and
industrial threat" to the world.
This worry is likewise at the core of the economist argument for the
promotion of reproductive health. Advocates of population control contend
for the universal access to reproductive technologies (such as condoms,
the pill, abortion, and vasectomy) and , more importantly, giving women
the right to choose whether to have children or not. Finally, politics
determine these "birth control" programs. Developed countries justify
their support for population control in developing countries by depicting
the latter as conservative societies
The use of population control to prevent economic crisis has its critics. For
example, Betsy Hartmann disagrees with the advocates of neo-
Malthusian theory and accused governments of using population control
as a "substitute for social justice and much needed reforms - such land
distribution, employment creation, provision of mass education and health
care, and emancipation. Others pointed out that the population did grow
fast in many countries in the 1960s, and this growth "aided economic
development by spurring technological and institutional innovation and
increasing the supply of human ingenuity."
The median of 29.4 years for females and 30.9 for males in the cities
means a young working population. With this median age, states are
assured that they have a robust military force. The productive capacities
of this generation are especially high in regions like East Asia as "Asia's
remarkable growth in the past half century coincided closely with
demographic change in the region.
Population growth has, in fact, spurred "technological and
institutional innovation" and increased " the supply of human ingenuity."
Advances in agricultural productions have grown that the Malthusian
nightmare can be prevented. The "Green Revolution" created high-
yielding varieties of rice and other cereals and, along with the
development of new methods of cultivation, increase yields globally, but
more particularly in the developing world. The global famine that neo-
Malthusian predicted did not happen. Instead, between 1950 and 1984,
global gain production increased by over 250 percent, allowing agriculture
to keep pace with population growth, thereby keeping global famine
under control.

Women and Reproductive Rights

The character in the middle of these debates - women - is often the
subject of these population measures. Reproductive rights supporters
argue that if population control and economic development were to reach
their goals, women must have control over whether they will have
children or not and whey they will have their progeny, if any. By giving
women this power, they will be able to pursue their vocations - be they
economic, social, or political - and contribute to economic growth.
This serial correlation between fertility, family, and fortune has
motivated countries with growing economies to introduce or strengthen
their reproductive health laws, including abortion. High-income First World
nations and fast-developing countries were able to sustain growth in part
because women were given the power of choice and easy access to
reproductive technologies.
Most countries implement reproductive health laws because they
worry about the health of the mother. Opponents regard reproductive
rights as nothing but a false front for abortion. They contend that this
method of preventing conception endangers the life of the mother and
must be banned. The religious wing of the anti-reproductive flank goes
further and describes abortion as a debauchery that sullies the name of
God; it will send the mother to hell and prevents a new soul, the baby, to
become human.
Muslim countries do not condone abortion and limit wives to domestic
chores and delivering babies. The Philippines with a Catholic majority now
has a reproductive health law in place , buth conservative politicians have
enfeebled it through budget cuts and installed its implementation by filing
a case against the law in the Supreme Court.
A country being industrialized and developed, however, does not
automatically assure pro-women reproductive regulations.

The Feminist Perspective

Feminists approach the issue of reproductive rights from another
angle. They are, foremost, against any form of population control because
they are compulsory by nature, resorting to a carrot-and-stick approach
(punitive mechanism co-exist alongside benefits) that actually does not
empower women. They believe that government assumptions that
poverty and environmental degradation are caused by overpopulation are
wrong. These factors ignore other equally important causes like the
unequal distribution of wealth, the lack of public safety nets like universal
health care, education, and gender equality programs.
 Feminists also point out that there is very little evidence that point o
overpopulation as the culprit behind poverty and ecological devastation.
Governments have not directly responded to these criticisms, but one of
the goals of the 1994 United Nations International Conference on
Population and Development suggests recognition of this issue.

Population Growth and Food Security

Today's global population has reached 7.4 billion. it is estimated to
increase to 9.5 billion in 2050, then 11.2 billion by 2100. The median age
of this population is 30.1, with the male median age at 29.4 years and
female, 30.9 years. Ninety-five percent of this population growth will
happen in the developing countries, with demographers predicting that by
the middle of this century, several countries will have tripled their
population.
Demographers predict that the world population will stabilize by 2050
to 9 billion, although they warn that feeding this population will be an
immense challenge. The decline in fertility and the existence of a young
productive population, however, may not be enough to offset this concern
over food security. The food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns
that in order for countries to mitigate the impact of population growth,
food production must increase by 70 percent; annual cereal production
must rise to 3 billion tons from the current 2.1 billion; and yearly meat
production must go up to 200 million tons to reach 470 million.
The problem here is that the global rate of growth of cereals had
declined considerably - from 3.2 percent in 1960 to just 1.5 percent in
2000. The FAO recommends that countries increase their investments in
agriculture, craft long-term policies aimed at fighting poverty, and invest
in research and development. The UN body suggests also that countries
develop a comprehensive social service program that includes food
assistance, consistent delivery of health services, and education
especially for the poor.
5. 2 Global Migration
Hello Students! You are about to discover in this lesson the various
reasons why people move from one location to another. Relax and enjoy
the lesson!

What is Migration?
Migration should not be considered a "problem." There is nothing
moral or immoral about moving from one country to another. Human
beings have always been migratory. It is the result of their movements
that areas get populated, communities experience diversity, and
economies proper. Thus, rather than looking at migration in terms of a
simplistic good vs. bad lens, treat it as a complex social phenomenon that
even predates contemporary globalization.
 Cambridge English Dictionary defines global migration as " a situation
in which people go to live in foreign countries, especially in order to find
work. Most global migration is from developing countries to developed
ones."
There are two types of migration: internal migration, which refers to
people moving from one area to another within on country and
international migration, in which people cross borders of one country to
another.
International migration can be broken down into five groups. First are
those who move permanently to another country (immigrants). The
second refers to workers who stay in another country for a fixed period (at
least 6 months in a year). Illegal migrants comprise the third group, while
the fourth are migrants whose families have "petitioned" them to move
for the destination country. The fifth group are refugees (also known as
asylum seekers), i.e., those "unable or unwilling to return because of a
well- founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality,
membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."
Even if 90 percent of the value generated by migrant workers remains in
their host countries, they have sent billions back to their home countries.
In 2014, India held the highest recorded remittance ($70 billion), followed
by China ($62 billion), the Philippines ($28 billion), and Mexico ($25
billion). These remittances make significant contributions to the
development of small- and medium-term industries that help generate
jobs.
Remittances likewise change the economic and social standing of
migrants, as shown by new or renovated homes and their relatives' access
to new consumer goods. The purchasing power of a migrant's family
doubles and makes it possible for children to start or continue their
schooling. Yet, there remain serious concerns about the economic
sustainability of those reliant on migrant monies. The Asian Development
Bank (ADB) observes that in countries like the Philippines, remittances "do
not have a significant influence on other key items of consumption or
investment such as spending on education and health care.
More importantly, global migration is "siphoning qualified personnel'
(and) removing dynamic young workers. This process has often been
referred to as "brain drain." The loss of professionals in certain key roles,
such as doctors, has been detrimental to the migrants' home countries. In
2006, some 15 percent of locally trained doctors from 21 sub-Saharan
African countries had emigrated to the United States or Canada; the
losses were particularly steep in Liberia (where 43 percent of doctors left),
Ghana (30 percent), and Uganda (20 percent).
Governments are aware of this long-term handicap, but have no
choice but to continue promoting migrant work as part of sate policy
because of the remittances' impact on GDP.

The Problem of Human Trafficking and Integration

On top of the issue of brain drain, sending states must likewise

protect migrant workers. The United States Federal Bureau of
Investigation lists human trafficking as the third largest criminal activity
worldwide. In 2012, the International Labour Organization (ILO) identified
21 million men, women, and children as victims of "forced labor," an
appalling three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide.
Human trafficking has been very profitable, earning syndicates,
smugglers, and corrupt state officials profits as high as $150 million a year
in 2014. Governments, the private sector, and civil society groups have
worked together to combat human trafficking, yet the results remain
uneven.
Demography is a complex discipline that requires the integration of
various social scientific data. As you have seen, demographic changes
and policies have impacts on the environment, politics, resources, and
others. Yet, at its core, demography accounts for the growth and decline
of the human species. It may be about large numbers and massive
effects, but it is ultimately about people. Thus, no interdisciplinary
account of globalization is complete without an accounting of people. The
next lesson will continue on this theme of examining people, and will
focus particularly on their global movement.
Global migration entails the globalization of people. And like the
broader globalization process, it is uneven. some migrants experience
their movement as a liberating process. A highly educated professional
may find moving to another country financially rewarding. At the end,
victim of sex trafficking may view the process of migrating as dislocating
and disempowering.
Like globalization, moreover, migration produces different and often
contradictory responses. On one hand, many richer states know that
migrant labor will be beneficial for their economies.
It is inevitable that countries will have to open up again to prevent their
economies from stagnating or even collapsing. The various responses to
these movements - xenophobia and extreme nationalism in the receiving
countries; dependency in the sending countries- will continue to be
pressing issue.

Module 6: Environmental Crisis Sustainable

Development and The Global Filipino
6.1 Environmental Crisis and Sustainable Development
The World's Leading Environmental Problems

Hi everyone! The world seems to be in trouble with the gradual, if not

sudden, global climate change. Well, as citizens of this planet earth, each
one must do something noble to save mother earth from decay. Let us
learn more about the leading environmental problems as we also think of
ways to prevent the world from destruction. Relax and enjoy the lesson!
The following are the world's leading environmental problems:

1. The depredation caused by industrial and transportation toxins and

plastic in the ground; the defiling of the sea, rivers, and water beds by
oil spills and acid rain; the dumping of urban waste.
2. Changes in global weather patterns (flash floods, extreme snowstorms,
and the spread of deserts) and the surge in ocean and land
temperatures leading to a rise in sea levels, plus the flooding of many
lowland areas across the world.
3. Overpopulation
4. The exhaustion of the world's natural non-renewable resources from oil
reserves to minerals to potable water.
5. A waste disposal catastrophe due to the excessive amount of waste
unloaded by communities in landfills as well as on the ocean; and the
dumping of nuclear waste.
6. The destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of
biodiversity that have led to the extinction of particular species and the
decline in the number of others.
7. The reduction of oxygen and the increase in carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere because of deforestation, resulting in the rise in ocean
acidity by as much as 150 percent in the last 250 years.

Man-made Pollution

Humans exacerbate other natural environmental problems. In Saudi

Arabia, sandstorms combined with combustion exhaust from traffic and
industrial waste has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare
Riyadh as one of the most polluted cities in the world. It si this "human
contribution" that has become an immediate cause of worry. Greenpeace
India reported that in 2015, air pollution in the country was at its worst,
aggravated by the Indian government's inadequate monitoring system
(there were only 17 national air quality networks covering 89 cities across
the continent).
Waste coming out of coal, copper, and gold mines flowing out into
rivers and oceans is destroying sea life or permeating the bodies of those
which survived with poison (mercury in tuna, prominently).
Pollution in West Africa has affected "the atmospheric circulation
system that controls everything from wind and temperature to rainfall
across huge swathes of the region." The Asian monsoon, in turn, had
become the transport of polluted air into the stratosphere, and scientist
are now linking Pacific storms to the spread of pollution in Asia.
People's health has been severely compromised. An archived article in
the journal Scientific American blamed the pollution for "contributing to
more than half a million premature deaths each year at the cost of
hundreds of billions dollars.
It has been the poor who are most severely affected by these
environmental problems. Their low income and poverty already put them
at a disadvantage by not having the resources to afford goof health care,
to live in unpolluted areas, to eat healthy food, etc.
In Metropolitan Manila, 37 percent (4 million people) of the population
live in slum communities, areas where "the effects of urban environmental
problems and threats of climate change are also most pronounced.... due
to their hazardous location, poor air pollution and solid waste
management, weak disaster risk management, and limiting coping
strategies of household."
Catching Up and Climate Change

The massive environmental problems are difficult to resolve because

governments believe that for their countries to become fully developed,
they must be industrialized, urbanized and inhabited buy a robust middle
class with access to the best of modern amenities. A developed society,
accordingly, must also have provisions for the poor - jobs in the industrial
sector, public transport system, and cheap food. Food depends on a
country's free trade with other food producers. It also relies on a
"modernized" agricultural sector in which toxic technologies (such as
fertilizers or pesticides) and modified crops (e.g., high-yielding varieties of
rice) ensure maximized productivity.
Governments have their own environmental problems to deal with, but
these states' ecological concerns become worldwide due to global
warming, which transcends national boundaries. Global warming is the
result of billion of tons of carbon dioxide (coming form coal-burning power
plants and transportation), various air pollutants, and other gases
accumulating in the atmosphere. These pollutants trap the sun's radiation
causing the warming of the earth's surface. With the current amount of
carbon dioxide and other gases, this "greenhouse effect" has sped up the
rise in the world temperature. There is now a consensus that the global
temperature has risen at a faster rate in the last 50 years and it continues
to go up despite efforts by climate change deniers that the world had
cooled off in and around 1998.
The greenhouse effect is responsible for recurring heat waves and long
droughts in certain places, as well as for heavier rainfall and devastating
hurricanes and typhoons in others. Until recently, California had
experienced its worst water shortage in 1,200 years due to global
warming.
In India and Southeast Asia, global warming altered the summer
monsoon patterns, leading to intermittent flooding that seriously affected
food production and consumption as well as infrastructure networks.
Category 4 and 5 typhoons, like the Super Typhoon Haiyan that hit the
central Philippines in 2013, had "doubled and even tripled in some areas
of the (Southeast Asian) basin. Scientist claim that there will be more (of
such) typhoons in the coming years.
Glaciers are melting every year since 2002, with Antarctica losing 134
billion metric of ice. There is a coastal flooding not only in the United
States eastern seaboard but also in the Gulf of Mexico.
Flooding has allowed more breeding grounds for disease carriers like
the Aedes aegpyti mosquito and the cholera bacteria. Since human-made
climate change threatens the entire world, it is possibly the greatest
present risk to humankind.
Combating global warming

More countries are now recognizing the perils of global warming. In

1997, 192 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse
gases, following the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit where a
Framework Convention for Climate Change was finalized. The protocol set
targets but left it to the individual countries to determine how best they
would achieve these goals.
Social movements have had success working together, with some
pressure on their governments to regulate global warming.
When local alliances between the state, schools, and communities are
replicated at thee national level, the success becomes doubly significant.
In Japan, population pressures forced the government to work with civil
society groups, academia, and political parties to get the parliament to
pass a blizzard of laws- 14 passed at once - in what became known as the
Pollution Diet of 1970. These regulations did not eliminate environmental
problems, but today, Japan has some of the least polluted cities in the
world.
6.2 Global Filipino
Today, the Philippine economy depends largely on incomes from jobs
with global connections. The first is migrant labor. In 2015, the
Department of Labor and Employment reported that the number of
Filipinos leaving the country to work overseas rose from 4,018 in 2010 to
6,092 in 2015, a 51-percent increase in the span of five years. In 2016,
there were 2.4 million Filipinos leaving and/or working outside of the
country. They sent back $25.8 billion in 2015, roughly 8.5 percent of the
country's gross domestic product.
Filipinos really have very little choice but to accept this globalized
state as a country and a people. Globalization's impact has, admittedly,
been uneven and often does not benefit most Filipinos. Yet, there is some
movement; there is progress when the Philippines at the end of the 20th
century is analyzed. And part of that is because - right or wrong -
Philippine political leaders decided to open up the country to the world.
The next step now is to make sure that the imbalance from globalization's
benefits is corrected to allow more Filipinos to live a better life.
Module 6 Summary
Perhaps no issue forces people to think about their role as citizens of the
world than environmental degradation. Every person, regardless of
his/her race, nation, or creed belongs to the same world. When one looks
at an image of the earth, he/she will realize that, he/she belongs to one
world-a world that is increasingly vulnerable. In the fight against climate
change, one can not afford to simply care about his/her own backyard.
The CO2 emitted in one country may have severe effects on the climate of
another. There is no choice but to find global solutions to this global
problem.