La Mondialisation

At the end of the 20th Century, Spain decided to build two barriers in Ceuta and Melilla, to prevent illegal immigration from Africa, due to globalization. By the process of Globalization, the different nations of the world are interconnected and interdependent to each other. In the first part, we will see that globalization has removed the national worldwide borders, but in the second part, we will see that some borders still remain and globalization has paradoxically created new barriers.

In the first place, we can affirm that globalization is responsible of the disappearance of borders in the world.

Indeed, globalization has accelerated human mobility and increased migration over the last twenty years. A lot of people are leaving their country to move in another, for different reasons (political or economic reasons principally). The tourist flows in rich countries, the international flows of workers and the refugee movement are becoming important.

On the economic and financial level, globalization has also erased the national borders. The increased opening of national economies has brought a real explosion of worldwide trade. The important exchanges between states show how much they have become interdependent. Monetary exchanges are concentrated in international financial places. Multinational firms are developing all over the world (for instance, we studied in the document 4 the case of the multinational firm of Nike). Besides, there are economic alliances such as the European Union or ALENA. They allowed to constitution of free trade zone.

On top of that, thanks to the development of the technology and communication, there are no more barriers for information flow all through the world. The circulation of news is accessible for everyone by the internet and the media (except in the north of Korea).

However, some borders still remain and new barriers have even been created due to globalization. There are borders that should probably never disappear. Indeed, each civilization tries to keep their cultural specificities, beliefs, traditions… Therefore, cultural barriers are still preserved, especially in Asia, Africa and Europe.

We can see that some borders still remain as political symbols, especially in areas of conflict between states, as the case of Cyprus where there is a border between Greek and Turkish Cypriot, the wall between Palestine and Israel.

The richest states, often confronted to high level of migration flows, have to close or reinforce their border (for example: Us Mexican border).

To prevent illegal immigration that increases, some countries have built new barriers. For instance, we could take the examples of India and Bangladesh, China and North Korea and recently, Greece and Turkish Cypriot.

Because of globalization, national borders in the world have faded away: the trade of goods, the flows of migration, of capital and of information has nowadays an international dimension. But globalization has shaped a new world geography which has shaken up the division of the world into geopolitical zones. So paradoxically, globalization has created new borders in the world and reinforced others existent borders. Furthermore, globalization is contested by some anti-globalization movements who think that it leads to bigger social and economics

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