ABSTRACT
Two major approaches to the study of globalization can be identified. The first is to explore the process whereby the world is becoming a unified system; the second is to focus on each nation’s experience in the process of becoming a member state of the world system. There is a growing consensus among social scientists that “the world has been moving toward a world consciousness, a consciousness of something called humanity” (Wallerstein 1997: 93). Wallerstein further elaborates:
Originally, the globe contained a very large number of distinct and distinctive groups. Over time, little by little, the scope of activity has expanded, the groups have merged, and bit by bit, with the aid of science and technology, we are arriving at one world – one political world, one economic world, one cultural world. We are not yet there but the future looms clearly before us.
