What causes Globalisation?

There are political, economic, social and technological changes that have all contributed to the acceleration of globalisation over the past 50 years (PEST acronym)

Political change:

• 1945/9 - the Soviet Union created puppet communist states in Eastern Europe and East Germany
• To prevent their citizens running away to the West, they built a physical wall, known as the Iron Curtain, right across Europe
• 1949 - Chiese communists, under Mao Zedong, seized power through civil war
• The second half of the 20th century started with the world divided into two opposing camps - in the East there were the communist states and in the West there were the free market 'capitalist' states
• Political parties differed mainly in their views on the extent to which the government should intervene to help the inevitable losers in the free market struggle for survival
• By the 1980s, it became clear there was only one winner in this battle of ideas
• Free-market societies were richer, could afford better armies and attracted people to their shores, while citizens in communist states were desperate to escape
• Russia and China both swicthed to free market economic systems 
• In China, the Communist Party has managed to retain political control
• In Russia, the Commuist Party fell from power but has been unable to establish a true democracy
• In a divided world there was little trade, exchange of ideas or migration with the hated ideological enemy on either side
• The opening up of China and the Soviet Union, economically, has been a major reason why globalisation has accelerated since the 1980s

Economic change:

• Three key identifying marks of economic aspects of globalisation:
  • increase in world trade as a proportion of world GDP
  • increased international investment flows
  • increased international labour migration
• The first of these two changes have been encouraged by governments over the past 50 years through the reduction in rules that restricted their free movement - economic liberalisation 
• The mutual benefits of world trade were highlighted by the 1930s economic depression:
  • major Western countries put up protectionist trade barriers against imports in an attempt to increase demand for their own goods and so reduce the scale of the recession
  • however, if every country does this then your exports fall too
  • demand for domestic goods ends up no greater than it was before, and all countries have lost out on the benefits of specialisation
• The post-war period has been marked by a concerted effort on the part of the world's major economies to reduce trade barriers and so increase world trade as a percentage of world GDP
• The hope is that all countries will gain from specialising in what they do best
• By creating one global market, competition in every industry will be increased, which will benefit the consumer as it will force prices down and quality and innovation up
• 1960/2016 - internationally traded goods and service rose from 12% to 30% of world GDP
• International free trade agreements since 1944 are partly responsible for this
• Free trade agreements:
  • 1944 - Bretton…