ABSTRACT
Trade, terrorism, clash of cultures, migration, off-shoring banking, international portfolio and foreign direct investment, multinational corporations, outsourcing, Avian flu and SARS, global warming, the importation of foreign invasive species that gain ecological advantages over native species, ordering Vietnamese or Ethiopian food in rural America restaurants, choosing between a Big Mac or KFC in Beijing, and study abroad are just the tip of an iceberg labeled globalization. Globalization consists of multiple processes by which people in one society become culturally, economically, politically, socially, informationally, strategically, epidemiologically, and ecologically closer to peoples in geographically distant societies. These processes include the expansion of cross-border trade, production of goods and services via the multinational corporation, outsourcing of work across borders, movement of peoples, exchange of ideas and popular culture, flow of environmental effects and disease from one state to another, and routine transfer of billions of dollars across borders in an nanosecond. They connect communities, cultures, national markets for goods and services, and national markets for labor and capital. The food we consume, clothes we wear, jobs we perform, air we breathe, water we drink, cars we drive, transport that delivers our goods, information we access, capital that powers our economies, services we use, computers we use, places we travel, education we seek, diseases we contract, drugs and therapies we employ to combat illness, and just about every aspect of day-to-day life have some global component. The world is figuratively shrinking as activities in one nation increasingly spill over to influence activities in other nations.
