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A global village
‘By 2010 we shall be truly living in a global village and cyberspace will be 
the town square’ (Snyder, 2004: 22). The expression ‘global village’ was 
originally coined to illustrate that through the advancement of electronic 
communications, the peoples of the world can now be as closely linked as 
the people in a traditional village. This notion has now been enlarged to 
include religion, trade and migration, and the whole world is now seen by 
many as a single community. Roger Byers, the diplomatic editor writing in 
The Times on 23 June 2012 about the need for greater understanding and 
trust among nations in Europe, says that: ‘The continent of Europe is the 
sum of its regions.’ He cites as an example: ‘An inhabitant of Nuremberg is 
a Nuremberger first, a Franconian second, a Bavarian third, then a German 
and a European.’
The components of globalization
Hill (2005) maintains that globalization refers to a shift towards a more 
integrated and independent world economy with three main components. 
His views can be summarized as follows:
Globalization of markets: national markets have been merged into one 
larger marketplace. The emergence of a global norm in terms of customer 
expectations has made it possible to sell standardized goods all over the 
world, for example, the acceptance of Coca Cola, Levi jeans, McDonald’s 
hamburgers, and Honda and BMW cars. Other examples include the sheer 
size and reach of companies like Wal- Mart, the world’s largest retailer, 
ExxonMobil, the largest oil company, the merger of major airlines such 
as British Airways and Iberia to form the International Airline Group, and 
the acquisition of Cadbury’s by the American food giant Kraft.
Globalization of production: companies spread different parts of their 
production processes to different locations around the globe to take 
advantage of national and cultural differences in the cost and quality of 
the factors of production. They aim to base their individual productive 
activities at the most favourable locations. This can have the advantage 
of stimulating growth in the local economy, particularly in terms of 
providing local jobs and increased spending power.
Emergence of global institutions: partly as a result of institutions such as the 
WTO and the IMF, global trade has grown faster than global output and 
foreign direct investment has greatly increased. Imports have penetrated 
industrialized nations and competition has increased in many indus-
tries. National economies are no longer self- contained as trade barriers 
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Globalization and its Effect on Culture 211
have come down as a result of the increase in cross- border trade and 
technological advances.
Globalization has helped accentuate international cooperation, such as in 
the expansion of the G8 group of countries to the G20. Greater diversity is 
seen as a major benefit to global problem solving. The EU is considering the 
development of a diplomatic service to represent all of its Member States.
The IMF, a multi- governmental organization, was formed in 1944 with the 
aim of preserving global financial stability and assisting the World Bank and 
other organizations in the global war on poverty. It also aims to facilitate 
the international flow of currencies. The current Chief Executive, Christine 
Lagarde, was appointed to succeed Dominique Strauss- Kahn. Min Zhu from 
China has been appointed as Deputy Managing Director, in recognition of 
the significance of the new emerging nations and especially the BRICs.
The World Bank, also formed in 1944, is a multilateral institution set up to 
provide investment capital for countries.
The WTO is a voluntary organization through which groups of countries 
negotiate trading agreements. It is the successor to the General Agreement 
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in which over 140 nations negotiated tariff 
reductions and made progress regulating such issues as intellectual property 
and trade in services. It is primarily responsible for policing the world’s trad-
ing systems and has the authority to ensure that nation states adhere to the 
regulations laid down in trade treaties and to oversee trade disputes and the 
enforcement of trade laws. China was admitted to the WTO in 2002 and as 
a result of its membership is expected to reform its business environment 
with increased transparency, to abide by the WTO’s global trading rules and 
to begin to increase the liberalization of its economy.