Custom «Post Cold War Era» Essay Paper Sample

The interdependency of the world economies resulting from cross-border trading of commodities and services and the flow of capital and technologies from among different economies is referred to as economic globalization. It is the economic development which reflects the ever expanding relations in the entire world, and the rapid information growth of activities that are productive with their marketing being the drivers of economic globalization. It is the contemporarily unfolding phase that shifts from the market state to diverse development policies that create space for coexistence of states. Globalization is the rapid growth of technologies and sciences that result from the market based, and spreading all over the world, developing division of labor across borders. This advancement of science and technologies has lead to the easing of the transportation, communication making the economics of globalization possible. This, in turn, has led to the compression of time and space which affects the rapid growth of economies by the reduction of costs making it possible for the organization and coordination of production globally. Net-work based economies have resulted to shadow enterprises groups that make the concept of distance of certain economic activities to be meaningless.      

The spread of economic globalization, through the forging of stronger links among nations, has been accompanied by the strife of nations struggle for inter and the intra-power after the backdrop of post cold war. It has led to nuclear stifle, civil, ethnic, tribal and religious wars. The interaction among nations is strongly developed by the economics and the international politics that do encompass conflicts among the diverse social cultural forces. The post-cold war intra-forces of developed nations are located in particular places. Hence, the tension in developing nations intensified due to the inter state and civil war. The growing importance of globalization is captured by the indices of trade which is depicted by the flow of goods and services that include capital technological transfers, foreign investment and communication and the social relations and customs. Globalization is also reflected in the political scenes as it enhanced the spread of pluralist systems, multiparty democracies, independent judiciaries and human right organizations. Thus, globalization has not proceeded in these spheres smoothly as it has generated contradictory that only result in limited achievements. Despite the progressive removal of the trade barriers after the cold war, which has brought the financial to near objective achievements, there has been subjection of trade barriers that rang from tariffs to non-tariff barriers. There has been the imposition of trade barriers of the industrialized nations toward their trade with the developing nations. The pattern of economic globalization shows the inequalities that are measured in terms of trade where most of these transactions do take place in the developed nations. Although there are linkages of the developed to the developing nations, there is a direction that marks the concentrations as only a handful of these nations that account for the most of the flow.

Globalization has been enormously driven by the expansion of capitalism and technological advances which have been operational thus increasing their scale of intensity. The expression of capitalism is the shift toward the reliance of market, the world over, as there has been less intervention of enterprises by the states as compared to the past. Communism is just a manifestation of global structures, as the communist countries have stricken a global reach of private enterprises and the free markets.

Economic Consequences of Globalization

There are wide ranging economic consequences that are associated with the globalization process, which has been aggravated by the fact of present acceleration of globalization coincided with the low response to growth in the 1970s of developed nations and the stagnation of the developing nations. It is not possible to separate the impacts of globalization economically to its impact on technology, liberalization and deregulation, thus certain social-economic effects are produced by the processes of globalization. The economic factors that are affected by globalization are efficiency and growth and distribution. It has been associated with many market barriers that have been reduced which increase the movements of goods and services (Ghai, 1997, p. 45).

The improvements of management have also been brought about by the issue of globalization efficiency. The value of these efficiency gains are usually achieved by full utilization of the available resources than when it is added to excess capacity and unemployment. The economic crises and its stillness coincidence with globalization in most nations mean that the gain on efficiency as a result of improved resource allocation has led to the problems of unemployment, poverty and inequality even though there are reforms laid to enhance rapid and efficient growth in the long run.

There have been conflicts in regard to the consideration of growth. The increased competition in both local and international has lead to the pressure of reducing costs in order to improve productivity; this is enhanced through the reduction of wages and employment creating the uncertainty of prospecting jobs. These in return affect the demand of consumers and the constraining government to reduce its spending to control the effects of inflation. These have lead to the integration of factors of production and markets thus undermining the pursuance of expansion in most countries that increase employment and consumer demand. The long terms are uncertain in increasing competition and healthy environment to enhance business activities; increase investment and technological advancement do contribute to growth on substantial and sustainable basis. Countries are able to forge growth rapidly as is depicted by most Asian countries, but the absence of appreciable mechanism for policy coordination counters the influences of sustainable expansion at the world level (Tschirgi, 2003).

The issue of distribution is related to the benefit and losses that are accrued by globalization, which is usually concerned specifically on the gainers and losers brought forth by the changes of globalization.  The distribution of income is thus uncertain to tell the direction it heads and the change in the income caused by globalization; it is only the identification of the factor that affects the impact of income distribution. Income inequalities are associated with globalization where the role played by the market of labor and the capital markets, have the tendency of raising the interest rates thus lowering the wage rate. These effects put pressure on wages which are only reinforced by technological advances that save the cot of labor. The ability of a country to attract foreign investments experience the rise of employment, countries that have the ability attract foreign funds benefit as there is increased level of employment that subsequently lead to the rise of wages reducing inequalities. The extreme of this is the out flow of capital that leads to poverty and inequalities (Shangquan, 2000, p. 116).

The over all impacts of the negative changes brought about by globalization are on the working class.  The pressure of employment and wages in developed countries is exhibited by the increased completion both internal and international, the technological advancement and the internationalization of their production.  The majority of those that benefit from the issue of globalization are the multinational corporations, mobile capital owners and professional and technical personnel.

The Social Cultural Impact

The issue of globalization has impacted on the social and cultural treads that are mostly manifested by the different patterns of lifestyles. The impact can be noted on the affluent population and the youth. Most consumption goods are made available to the affluent groups in the developing and the communist countries while the luxury goods reach more people in developed nations (Tschirgi, 2009, p. 56). The social and cultural have been treading toward the homogenization at the expense of diversity and richness that destroys and weakens the locals. Social relations, behaviors and values, are the social cultural practices that are dominant influenced by the issue of globalization. It can also strengthen groups in the world that share a common interest. The poor minorities in developing countries relate with the middle class of the developed countries thus providing a common goal that is beyond the state borders. This common culture enhances the creation of international commerce, production and investment. Social and cultural globalizations have aroused the resistance that has occurred in both developed and developing nations in various forms. The restriction of imported products is viewed to have negative effects, and the culture of the nation. This opposition is the wide spread concerning the local society influence by these foreign cultures. Most people in the developing national are not exposed to the circuit of luxury and consumption, which is exposed by the media leading to the association of illegal activities for the individual to get rich and live the angelic life lived by a few.

Political and Institutional Aspects

The economic policy shifts have been affected by the spread of globalization and is largely accompanied by the power relations among international social groups. Through the effective, established institutions that are capable of enhancing the competition and the capital mobility, there has been an increase in the financial groups' power.  There has been relative weakening of the labor groups by the economic restructuring leading to various forms of employment and unemployment.  These changes are depicted by the institution levels that have been seen to be eroded by their power and their effectiveness (D & Taekyoon, 2009, p. 78).

The political parties that do normally incorporate their interest to these institutions and the poor workers have been marginalized or are in policies that are neoliberal. The business and employer’s organizations have more power and influence mostly through the ownership of the mass media. Globalization has thus diminished the power of states mostly in the domain of the state regulations of the economy. The freedom of a country to pursue the policies of independence is significantly related to the size of the economy and the integration. The reliance of countries to service their debts through international financial agencies cripples a country’s economic sovereignty.

Globalization and Human Insecurity

The changes that are associated with the acceleration of globalization have increased the intensity of insecurity in humans. This is the case especially in countries that do not have common social-economic systems and development levels. Insecurity is as a result of the changes in the domains of politics, society, economy and culture where the rapidity of the changes has an enormous impact on security, and mechanisms to cushion have collapsed under the same force (Tschirgi, 2003, p. 221). The contributors of insecurity are the changes in production processes, technology advancement and the financial speculation surge. These have precedent the pressure of livelihood expressed differently in different countries mostly the increase of unemployment. Most of developing countries have experienced the insecurity of unemployment with an increase of casual workers and the necessity of rapidly adjusting to the changes. These pressures are felt both by the professional and the unskilled labor, and even the employers are uncertain of the increased competition and innovations (D & Taekyoon, 2009, p. 124).

The changes in the political fields have reinforced the insecurity in income distribution that is influenced by lack of proper ideologies, those subsidies items that are of mass consumption and raising the cost of social services thus reducing benefits of social security.

Economic Security Enhancement

Human insecurity has worsened in most parts of the world after the cold war derived from unemployment, increase in poverty levels and the low level of state support. It is not possible to the conditions that were applied in earlier years so as to promote economic progress. The primary factor is to device policies that enhance zealous security to these situations that were created by technology advancement and globalization (Shangquan, 2000, p. 125). Problems of human security in developing countries are different from that of developed countries and policies to deal with them. Most developed countries were able to achieve full employment due to historic growth of their economy, but this can prove impossible to experience in future. The economic have to play bigger roles in the economic globalization process by not lagging behind and the establishment of regulatory systems. The international regulators are faced with many hurdles in the course of managing the global economy; thus there is a need to strengthen the macroeconomics that is created by policies of other countries. The international financiers should also create perfect systems that warn of the looming economic crises building up support capacities. The strengthening the supervision of cross-border finance so that a country can raise its capital sufficiently (Shangquan, 2000, p. 89).

The interest of the developing nations must be considered and, their say enhanced in the process of development of an economic tie. Globalization does not bring with it the benefits in a country’s economic order to be enjoyed by the developing worlds thus leaving these countries in dilemma. The progress of globalization should not only bring benefits to the developed countries but, they must be available for all countries. The developed nations should consider the interests of developing nations when giving their requirements to trade issues. The gap that exist between the developed and developing countries is extremely large in both economic structure and system thus the readjusting and reforming them should be quickened, and solving the gaps that exist on government being on the wrong side. The government must be able to strengthen the functions of property rights, providing infrastructures and the stabilization of macroeconomics.

This paper analyzes the consequences of economic social and institutional factors and the effects of globalization acceleration. It is most particular to the insecurity that arises due to the process of globalization. It has also been associated with social problems; ethnic conflicts and the political instability that arise die the periods of post war. Thus, the social institutional reforms must focus on social and economic security that have the reflection of real markets, competition and the advancement of technology, thus matching the globalization of the economy to that of social policy.