Globalization, Measurement of

Globalization is a slippery concept. That it is occurring is beyond doubt. Much more controversial, [Page 758]however, are the rates at which it is occurring, when it began, and where it is most in evidence. Academics do not agree even on the appropriate level of analysis for measuring globalization: should globalization be operationalized as a property of the individual (as a collection of attitudes, orientations, or personal network characteristics), the country (in terms of its interaction with or dependence on other countries and institutions of global governance), or the world as a whole (capturing the extent to which the world has become either homogenized or interdependent)? Moreover, the most commonly used quantitative indicators of globalization are all economic and tend not to capture the larger cultural and political forces at work. Such considerations make it extraordinarily difficult to grapple with globalization with any degree of methodological rigor. As a result, globalization is much more often discussed anecdotally than formally studied and measured, even in the academic literature.

Three basic approaches have been taken to dealing with these measurement challenges. The first is simply to gloss over them, substituting ad hoc examples of globalization in action for theoretically grounded measures. This is by far the most common approach, especially among journalists writing as (and often being cited as) social scientists. For example, an immigrant worker who sends remittances home may be used to illustrate the expanding relevance of global networks. Much of the globalization debate in popular and business discourse is conducted with this level of evidence. A slightly more sophisticated approach is to use economic and occasionally political indicators (international trade, investment flows, treaty memberships, and the like) to operationalize globalization. This is the most common method found in the academic literature today. The newest approach is to construct multiple-indicator globalization indices. These various indicator-based approaches are provided in this entry, followed by a brief discussion of the need for further methodological development.