As said in the previous chapters, the instruments developed to quantify global- ization are not generally able to measure the phenomenon directly; rather, they measure dynamics that more properly pertain to internationalization. It is conse- quently with indicators of internationalization that it is generally attempted to deduce levels of globalization (Scholte 2005, p. 55). This situation, moreover, derives from the fact, already recalled inChap. 1, that in the debate on this issue it is frequently not possible to draw a clear distinction between the concept of globalization and that of internationalization (Sklair1999, p. 144).
For this reason—but also for others, as we shall shortly see—globalization is a phenomenon which evades complete and exhaustive measurement. The tools proposed to date, in fact, are able to grasp and quantify only some of its aspects.
More specifically, it is not so much globalization per se that is usually measured but rather the degree of involvement in some of its characteristic dynamics of specific units of analysis—for example, as we have seen, states, cities, and people.
It has been repeatedly emphasized in this chapter that the various approaches developed to quantify globalization processes are not mutually incompatible.
Indeed, if they were combined, they would yield a more multi-level, and therefore more complete, account of a phenomenon whose characteristic features are complexity and multidimensionality, as well as a significant degree of ambiva- lence. The multiple processes into which globalization articulates are in fact sometimes of opposite sign: in the cultural sphere, for example, globalization translates into dynamics of either homogenization or heterogenization (Cowen 2002, p. 129). It is unlikely that a single instrument could give adequate account of such ambivalence. Nevertheless, even if the various approaches described in this book were combined, there would still persist some particularly important and distinctive aspects of globalization likely to be excluded from the measurement, and consequently from the analysis. In this regard, to refer again the concept of methodological nationalism already presented inChap. 2, instruments to measure the phenomenon which use territorial units of analysis—the state but also the city—are unable to grasp the crucial aspect of globalization represented by de- territorialization (Sassen2000; Scholte2000; Giaccardi and Magatti 2003; Beck 2000). By ‘deterritorialization’ is meant the dynamic that generates and spreads social phenomena unrelated to any physical space of action and interaction. For that matter, however, it is unlikely that even a person-based approach would be able to grasp this aspect in an entirely satisfactory manner.
Another and very important point to be stressed9is that globalization is dis- tinguished not only by factors that diversify spaces and individual experiences but also—and this is the feature which most sharply differentiates globalization from
9 The following part of the section includes some passages from Caselli (2008).
internationalization—by ‘indivisible’ factors which involve all the inhabitants of the Earth, regardless of their spatial locations and social circumstances (Caselli 2004). These factors are, for example, the sustainability and exploitation of natural resources, or the threat raised by the existence of nuclear weapons. Mankind’s technical ability to destroy all life on the planet in just a few seconds—in the event of a large-scale nuclear war—is a phenomenon that marks a radical break with the past, and it transcends any cleavage that may traverse the planet. To be noted in this regard is that, not coincidentally, a major stimulus for reflection on global- ization has been the Chernobyl disaster, which proved incontrovertibly that nuclear fears are not mere academic hypotheses, while it also—extremely importantly—made a mockery of the boundaries drawn by politics and history (above all the notorious ‘Iron Curtain’), demonstrating that it is by now impossible to conceive of closed ‘worlds’. The linkage between the nuclear threat and the problem of sustainability/unsustainability is the concept ofrisk. If overall glob- alization processes generate profoundly ambivalent dynamics, while simulta- neously giving rise to unity and rupture, there are those who argue—the main reference cannot but be Beck and his celebratedRisk Society(1986)—that risk is the most unifying and levelling factor in contemporary human experience. Mea- surement of this last aspect of globalization is therefore difficult, if not impossible, given that risk is differentiated on neither personal nor territorial bases: accord- ingly, the only conceivable unit of analysis is the planet (or humanity) in its entirety. However, it should be emphasized that, although a PBGI cannot directly measure risk as such, it is nevertheless able to record and quantify the different levels of perception of global risks among people or groups of people. Whilst the interdependence among the different areas of the planet is a globally unifying and undiversified element, vice versa the awareness of such interdependence may vary significantly from person to person.
Finally, a further element that evades the instruments hitherto developed to measure globalization, but which nonetheless very markedly characterizes the phenomenon, is the existence of certain procedures, techniques, and ‘expert sys- tems’ now used on a truly global scale. These are the procedures, techniques, and
‘expert systems’ which make possible the flows of money, products, ideas, and people that the current globalization indices seek to measure. Consider, for example, the rules that regulate the transport and communications system at planetary-level; the fact that there exists a currency—the dollar, and now to some extent the euro as well—utilizable for trading or purchasing in every corner of the globe; and the fact that all the computers in the world are now designed so that they can connect with the worldwide web.
Globalization thus confronts the social sciences with a fascinating and complex methodological challenge. Whilst it is clear that methodological nationalism is increasingly unsatisfactory, or even misleading, it is less clear what can take its place. One possibility has been suggested by the analysis conducted in this book: it could be superseded by a multiscalar approach able to conjugate different levels of analysis of a territorial type but not only.
5.4 Conclusions: On the Nature of Globalization and the Possibility of Measuring It 137
One may conclude by saying that all or almost all of the instruments discussed in this book are—apart, perhaps, from their need of some technical ‘fine tuning’—
useful tools with which to grasp certain dynamics of globalization and the intensity (and in part the structure) of the principal flows of goods and information that traverse the planet. It should be borne in mind, however, that they grasp only a particular—and perhaps not the most important—aspect of globalization. They do not account for the phenomenon in its entirety.
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