There is a certainly a multitude of ways to measure globalization on a worldwide spectrum. There are also many ways to describe and break-down globalization. One author stated “that the rapid increase in cross-border economic, social, technological and cultural exchange is civilizing and promises boundless prosperity and consumer joy” (Guillen 235). Certain trends emerge from every country and some do better than others. The Foreign Policy magazine has “created an index that measures a country's global links, from foreign direct investment to international travel. For the last two years, Singapore and Ireland have topped our ranking of political, economic, and technological integration in 62 countries” (Kearney 2003, 60). They have done a very thorough report and one can clearly see why nations like Ireland and Singapore do so well in terms of globalization.
The 21st century way to measure globalization definitely seems to be based heavily on technology. The percentage of a countries population with internet access is now a telling factor of how global that nation is. To put it a different way, “technology has become the engine of globalization” (Kearney 2001, 57). Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden all have populations less than 10 million but all rank very high in the technological aspect of globalization. This is largely because the number of online users and secure internet servers in these countries goes up every day. The United States is the overall leader in the technological category but with a population of around 300 million, that is not hard to understand why. Still though, smaller nations are catching up every day and in 10 years, they might take the lead, even though they have far less the amount of people.
Guillen, Mauro F. “Is Globalization Civilizing, Destructive or Feeble?” Annual
Review of Sociology © 2001 Annual Reviews. JSTOR. 16 July 2007.
Kearney, A. T. “Measuring Globalization: Globalization at Work”
Foreign Policy, No. 122. (Jan. - Feb., 2001) P.56-65. JSTOR. 04 June 2007.
george mason university
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