Introduction
One of the terms that is used by everyone regardless they are businessmen, politicians or academicians and whose meaning and nature are not settled is the term “globalization”. The origin of the word globalization is “global”. The word global may take different meanings in different languages. The most common meaning however is the 3D geometric figure. According to Meydan Larousse the term global means “undertaken entirely”. This is the meaning attributed to the word global by Western languages. Besides, the term means “homogeneity” in French. Hence the term means both “entirety” and “homogeneity”.
There are different ideas on the first usage of the term globalization with its contemporary meaning. Although the origin of the term with its contemporary meaning goes back to 17th century, the term grounds to the term “global village” used by Canadian sociology professor Marshall McLuhan in 1960 in his book titled “Explorations in Communication”. According to some other claims, the term globalization was first used in 1980s in the prestigious American colleges of Harvard, Stanford and Columbia and popularized by these environments. Another claim is that fist formations and forecasts of globalization were written by American entrepreneur-minister Charles Taze Russell with the term “corporate giants” in 1897.
The book of Ronald Robertson called “Globalization” has brought in theoretical content to the term. The term which had not been used in 1980s even by academic environments, was started to be used increasingly as a key term in the explanations of the theories of social change in 1990s.
The American Defense Institute defines globalization as “fast and continuous inter-border flow of goods, services, capital (or money), technology, ideas, information, cultures and nations”. According to the Institute, through globalization an unprecedented integration among economies is occurring, an information reform is being experienced, and markets, corporations, organizations and governance are becoming more international.
As can be seen from the definition, the term globalization covers many concepts. The term cannot be assessed solely as either political or economic process, or worldwide spanning of production or capital flows. Globalization covers a process that encompasses the whole aforementioned dimensions.
Therefore, the term globalization can be given different meanings by different people. It can be interpreted differently due to the different dimensions of the terms such as time/location, its dimensions, cause/result cycles and its perspectives. Hence the term can be used in different meanings by different people. Besides there are academic studies on which meaning is the term used. In one of such studies it is proposed that the term should be differentiated according to the disciplines.
In this study the term globalization that has wide, complex and contradicting effects is tried to be analyzed mainly with its economic dimension also with some references to cultural, social, political and historical facets.