Homogenization

In global studies, the term homogenization refers to a possible outcome of globalization and transnational processes. It suggests a deterministic force for change that disintegrates difference and diversity with the tendency to result in uniformity, sameness, and similarity.

This process of change and its potential outcomes at the global and transnational scales are associated with the domination of the Western model, particularly in the domains of economy, culture, polity, and social relations. This approach to global and transnational relations is captured in concepts such as westernization, Americanization, neocolonialism, McDonaldization, imperialism, dominance, and hegemony. This argument for the mono-causal process of transformation of the world according to the agenda of global capitalism has been contested for being overly simplistic and for not taking into account the many complexities that comprise global relations.

In the domain of economy, the notion of homogenization builds on ideas developed in the 1970s that the world economy is based on relations of production and division of labor between a small core of advanced countries, several semiperipheral economies, and a large pool of underdeveloped nation-states in the periphery. What came to be known as world-systems theory is concerned with capitalist relations between different nation-states and domination of the economically powerful core countries over the peripheral economies as these enter the global stage. Some have argued that this push to integrate local and national economies into a globalized economy based on neoliberal ideas of deregulation and opening of local markets to free trade has created new kinds of institutions, business entities, and social networks that operate beyond the boundaries of nation-states. Examples of intergovernmental institutions include the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. The so-called transnational corporations are new forms of entrepreneurship that facilitate consumption of goods and service, new forms of finance and lending, and production of capital at the global level. These are thought to constitute a new system of global economy in that these entities are not tied to any particular state territory and the global elites [Page 812]that run them often do not have loyalties to any particular nation-state or locale.

These transnational conglomerates constitute powerful monopolies with concentrated ownership of the whole chain of mass media production and consumption, from television, satellite, and cable to radio and film production and publishing outlets, including newspapers, magazines, and books. Through these outlets, a handful of very large transnational corporations have control over the process of cultural production and diffusion through which they are thought to promote ideas of consumerism, the culture of credit beyond one's means, and Western beliefs, ideologies, and lifestyles. Some see this as a form of cultural imperialism that threatens indigenous cultures and disrupts regional and national identities. It has been argued that homogenization of culture through the mass media, dominated by American and European values, triggers cultural conflict. An example of such a view is expressed as the conflict between, on the one hand, “McWorld,” modeled by the West and its popular culture of fast food, particular music styles, technologies, and art production, and on the other hand, “Jihad,” or national cultures based on religious traditions. A similar argument is made in terms of conflict of civilizations where the Western culture based on Christian values is said to clash with the non-Western civilization based on Islamic fundamentalist values.

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