ABSTRACT
The two words are not exactly parallel. Interdependence refers to a condition, a state of affairs. It can increase, as it has been doing on most dimensions since the end of World War II; or it can decline, as it did, at least in economic terms, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Globalization implies that something is increasing: there is more of it. Hence, our definitions start not with globalization but with “globalism,” a condition that can increase or decrease. Globalism is a state of the world involving networks of interdependence at
multicontinental distances. The linkages occur through flows and influences of capital and goods, information and ideas, and people and forces, as well as environmentally and biologically relevant substances (such as acid rain or pathogens). Globalization and deglobalization refer to the increase or decline of globalism. Interdependence refers to situations characterized by reciprocal effects among
countries or among actors in different countries. Hence, globalism is a type of
interdependence, but with two special characteristics. First, globalism refers to networks of connections (multiple relationships), not to single linkages. Wewould refer to economic or military interdependence between the United States and Japan, but not to globalism between the United States and Japan. U.S.–Japanese interdependence is part of contemporary globalism, but is not by itself globalism. Second, for a network of relationships to be considered “global,” it must include
multicontinental distances, not simply regional networks. Distance is a continuous variable, ranging from adjacency (between, say, the United States and Canada) to opposite sides of the globe (for instance, Great Britain and Australia). Any sharp distinction between long-distance and regional interdependence is therefore arbitrary, and there is no point in deciding whether intermediate relationships – say, between Japan and India or between Egypt and South Africa – would qualify. Yet globalism would be an odd word for proximate regional relationships. Globalization refers to the shrinkage of distance on a large scale [see box on pages 110]. It can be contrasted with localization, nationalization, or regionalization. Some examples may help. Islam’s rapid diffusion from Arabia across Asia
to what is now Indonesia was a clear instance of globalization, but the initial movement of Hinduism across the Indian subcontinent was not. Ties among the countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum qualify as multicontinental interdependence, because these countries include the Americas as well as Asia and Australia; but ties amongmembers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are regional. Globalism does not imply universality. At the turn of the millennium, more
than a quarter of the American population used the World Wide Web compared with one hundredth of 1 percent of the population of South Asia. Most people in the world today do not have telephones; hundreds of millions live as peasants in remote villages with only slight connections to world markets or the global flow of ideas. Indeed, globalization is accompanied by increasing gaps, in many respects, between the rich and the poor. It implies neither homogenization nor equity. Interdependence and globalism are both multidimensional phenomena. All too
often, they are defined in strictly economic terms, as if the world economy defined globalism. But there are several, equally important forms of globalism:
• Economic globalism involves long-distance flows of goods, services, and capital, as well as the information and perceptions that accompany market exchange. It also involves the organization of the processes that are linked to these flows, such as the organization of low-wage production in Asia for the U.S. and European markets.
