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10. Globalization and Consumption
I-Diversity:
This englobes not only the consumption of goods, but the consumption of “experience” (e.g. experiences acquired when traveling). Consumption patterns have changed hugely with globalization. Never before have consumers had access to so many products or experiences (if they have the resources): the choice range has never been as wide. This growth in choice has been driven by:
- The transportation revolution
- The communications revolution
- The liberalization of commerce and communications
This increases dramatically consumption and experiences, and we have access to almost anything. Many who observes what happens under globalization conclude we have more diversification than ever and we should be happy about that. Others say diversification is disappearing under our eyes and the world is becoming more homogenous: emergence of transitional corporations are an example/cause.
Against this, many populist or national movements emerging today put at the centre of their political programs the fact that globalization is diminishing national identities, it is leading to homogenization.
Are growing diversity and a greater level of homogenization compatible? Actually, the two processes are happening at the same time: internet makes available a wide range of consumers, large corporations select and narrow the choice.
II-Homogenization :
- An unequal playing field: Global brands and the elimination of competition.
- Homogenization through imitation: the power of form and format.
- Product differentiation by small competitors
- Conscious strategy by Global brands:
- Selling the format rather than the product (Japan)
- Hybridization as a market-entry strategy.
Highly disputed maybe is only their imagination, since we have more food than ever, TV channels, mobile phones, music, that’s to say, more branches than ever. So some people say TC are not so strong, but despite we have dozes of car o hundreds of phones, and thousands of films, they all look similar. Several times homogenization is the result of imitation. Smaller companies prefer imitate the way winners work and make their products, their packaging.
Japanese entrepreneurs became experts at was into developing format, how a TV should be designed, for comedy, for film… Not the content, format. The did so because Japan at the end of WWII was not particularly popular in the region. The proposed Korean and other entrepreneurs selling their format and way of making things instead of selling a program for example, the told them how to make it. So there is a great amount of homogenization across Asia. Especially in
the 80s and the 90s Japanese were able to sell their programs instead of the format as the old bad memories from the WWII were quite forgotten. Consumption culture.
WHL: (IMPORTANT: HOMOGENIZATION IS MAINLY HOMOGENIZATION
OF FORM)
Where is homogenization coming from?
- Mainly because globalization has created a very unequal playing field with very large players (TNCs) and very small local firms, so large players set the rules they want. The diversity is there, but large corporations induce the homogenization so consumers don’t see it.
- Big brands usually induce imitation. Very often, small brands end up imitating the big ones in order to survive, because they see their success or because they think that’s the way things could be done (those imitated have achieved the highest efficiency). It is not so much by producing the same product but imitating and introducing small differences in order to stand out. - Product differentiation means introducing a little difference that gives the impression of variety when, in fact, it’s pretty much the same (actually it induces homogenization, e.g. computer brands). When this differentiation involves introducing a local element on a global structure, it is called hybridization.
- Conscious strategy by global brands:
✓ selling the format rather than the product (Japan had a very bad reputation after WWII in countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore… what japan was able to do was to rely on a smart strategy to “steal” benefit from those markets in some fields of production, especially cultural industries – movies, shows, music… What they did was to sell formats rather than products. If they had a successful game show they would teach people how to create successful game shows, instead of the game show itself. Then, the products people saw or bought were not Japanese but they had the same format).
✓ hybridization as a market-enter strategy.
The homogenization that is taking place is mainly because the form of what we consume is similar. We all have different phones but the fact that we all have a phone is homogenization.
III-Types of Products and Experiences under Globalization
In the past, markets tended to be national and what was being consumed were national products. Now, markets are very diversified, where we have:
- Local/Indigenous Products and Experiences
- Foreign Products and Experiences
- Hybrid Products and Experiences (e.g. modern flamenco using the box)
- Transnational/Global Products and Experiences. (the outcome of globalization). Products whose origin is very uncertain, we can locate the producer but we cannot label it as necessarily national, hybrid or foreign. It has been made with influences from
I- Convergence Thesis: Modernization Theory
- Modernization(Industrialization/Education/Occupational Specialization/Urbanization)Values
- Linear modernization path
- Ceiling to modernization
- Eventual Convergence
It gives more conexion to people along the world. Globalization conversation around valued has not evolved as much as modernization theory.
Convergence VS divergence: what modernization theory says is the following: most societies’ values emphasize religion and tradition, what the priest says or what has been done before. So they have not developed.
Economic development
values values
But there is a point where you cannot evolve more. (Ingleharts doesn’t agree with these).
WHL: To what extent core values among people have converged in the last 30-40 years? Values are deeply-held ideas about how society should organize or how individuals should behave. What distinguishes values from attitudes or opinions is how deeply they are settled in our personality and how stable they are through the course of time.
There are two theories that lead to the expectation that values tend to converge.
- MODERNIZATION THEORY: rosed as part of the concern with economic development. Of course is no longer as popular as it was in the 50s and 0s but globalization has reborn quite the theory (mine). Developed in the 1950s (before globalization), it presents a mutually reinforcing fit between values and economic development. Functionalism emphasizes equilibrium: each set of values determines the development in the society and each society would have the set of values that correspond to their level of development. MODERNIZATION posits a theory of social change where this equilibrium is broken by what is called an “external shock” (e.g. discovery of precious metals in Latin America helped develop European countries, increase of temperature in the middle ages made an agricultural boost possible in Europe). It states that at some point in history, an external shock led to a change in the level of development in societies which fostered the emergence of new values, new values pushed more development, this reinforced values… For a long time, we will witness divergence, but this will trigger change, being the first society that experiments change the one who leads the other.
The values that eventually lead to modernity (industrialization, high levels of education, occupational specialization, urbanization…) are named rational-secular values. According to Weber, these values are the main factor of change throughout human history: it can be described as a continuous process of rationalization. These values are: secularization, belief in rational authority (rule of law), rejection of tradition as a guide for behaviour.
Rational seculars
According to modernization theory, societies keep moving, changing their values, adapting… but there is a moment when societies are as modern as they can be, and then once they have reached certain levels of satisfaction, their values do not change, they do not get reinforced, and there is no room for development. At these moment convergence starts taking place, because those who had fallen behind start moving towards this point.
- Global Polity theory. With globalization, there is a proliferation of international agents or organizations that spread scripts about what is right or wrong, especially to those countries that are part of their organization.
This theory is premised with something shared with the McDonalization theory: there is an optimum set of values that facilitates development, and only by positivizing this premise this theory works.
II-Globalization and Convergence: Mechanisms
- Communication revolution and the diffusion of values and information: imitative isomorphism
- The transportation revolution and the flow of people: imitative isomorphism
- Global polityand normative (and coercive) isomorphism
III-Criticism: Inglehart
- No Optimum Set of Values
- Culture is Thick
- Diminishing Returns to Rational/Secular Values.
- A New Axis: Survival/Self-Expression
The main critic of this is Inglehart. 1Societies may not know what are the values which make a society success, so they would imitate all the values of other society. 2Culture is sticky, your own culture may resist the imitation of other society values, you can achieve economic development without the necessity of adopting other society values. So He doesn’t think convergence should happen. Its contribution is he following: one shouldn’t expect that societies evolved in the traditional rational secular manner and then don’t change anymore. And the reasons are the following: the concept point, when societies whose values are rational and secular, leads to negatives externalities, like climate change. Too much rationality, too much growth into GDP per capita, would lead the world to a bad state. We should start thinking about a new set of values. Another reason the world of history doesn’t stop is because the human needs change, even when we reach the need for food, housing, we start to expire to other things, things we didn’t aspire to in the past. Like a more human or democratic society. Start to value other things.
Whl: He challenges the optimum premise, he says there is no optimal set of values required for development to take place, but development can be achieved with very different set of values. (e.g. Protestantism was supposed to lead to development, but for example in Germany the most developed regions were the catholic and not the protestant). Once this optimum is rejected, then the whole convergence thesis breaks down. You can get to be a highly developed country without necessarily following all of these rational-secular values, hence convergence is not needed. (e.g. while remaining a very religious society, the US has achieved high levels of development).
V-Patterns
- Wide Variety across Two Axes
- Values in North-Atlantic Area are uniformly Self-Expressive but vary along Traditional/Secular-Rational axis with the British Isles more traditional than the rest.
- Values in Europe are uniformly Secular-Rational but vary along Survival/Self- Expression axis, with Former Communist countries in the Survival quadrant.
- The Role of Development
- Culture? Other Factors?
VI-Value Convergence
- No evidence of Convergence (not even in Europe)
- Countries keep moving in the predicted direction but without convergence.
VII-Value convergence in Europe
- The context: economic and political globalization
- Family values
- Work Values
- Religious values
- Policy Values
- Political Values
- 6. Tolerance (only value) General tolerance is a good measure. As the time goes by, more Europeans agree this is a very important value when rising a child. So Global Polity may be in part right. But this not contradict Inglehart. But in certain times Global Polity can contribute to convergence toward some values.
Over the long run, the priority of parents to instill tolerance in their children has grown. Global organizations diffuse many scripts. Some with more resources and energy, others with less. In most cases they let countries do as they please and it is through imitations that countries chose convergence. Therefore, the adoption of these values depends on the energy given to their spread and the number of members on the organizations. The EU, over the course of history has promoted different ideas, but they generally haven’t made an effort in promoting family values, or work values, or secularism…
VIII-The EU and the World Polity Hypothesis
- Inglehart is right, but World Polity may sometimes promote convergence.
Whl: However, all the treaties signed since 1951 till today, promote the value of
tolerance, it is very central to the EU discourse. So if the policy value works it should
work in tolerance. This suggests that while on the whole, Inglehart’s theory will hold it
is true that just as national societies tend to be rather cohesive in their values, the
proliferation of global organizations around the world that concentrate on promoting
certain values may lead to a certain level of convergence: the forces Inglehart mentions
as divergent could be counteracted by the growth of the global polity and global society.
