Department of International Relations

University of Dhaka
BSS (Hons) 11th Batch, 4th Year, 8th Semester 2020

Course IR 406: Politics of Globalization

Tutorial Question: Can Globalization Survive During The Time Of A Pandemic?

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Dr. Lailufar Yasmin Shahidul Islam (JH-90)
Professor Session: 2016-2017
Department of International Relations Department of International Relations
University of Dhaka University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: February 11, 2021

 Table of Content

Topic Page

Introduction 1

Globalization 2

Effects of a Pandemic (Covid-19) on Globalization 3

Survival of Globalization 5

Conclusion 7

References 8
 Can Globalization Survive During The Time Of A Pandemic?

Introduction:
The term Globalization became popular from 1970s, many researchers have been working on this certain

topic.1 Globalization refers to the increased connectivity among states through trade, travelling and

communications. Rapid connectivity hastened the process of connectivity. The term Globalization is

under questioned for the rapid transmission of the Covid-19 pandemic. Human society saw many

pandemics from the beginning of the civilization but Covid-19 is different from the others because of its

rapid spread. On March 11, 2020 World Health Organization declared Covid-19 as a pandemic. 2 By the

attack of the Covid-19 China, factory of the world, has stopped. By the mid of the March all most all

states of the world closed their borders, imposed restrictions on movement of people and ordered to stay

at home and not to go outside of the home. The process to contain the spread of the pandemic was

against the process of globalization. If the states of the world were not so much dependent on each other

than it would be easy to contain this pandemic. In this paper, by analyzing the consequences of the

pandemic, the process of Globalization will be discussed to understand either globalization can survive

during the time of a pandemic or not.

1
Ritzer, George, ed. 2007. The Blackwell Companion to Globalization. Oxford, UK: Blackwell
Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470691939.

2
Wang, Fenglong, Sainan Zou, and Yungang Liu. 2020. “Territorial Traps in Controlling the
COVID-19 Pandemic.” Dialogues in Human Geography 10 (2): 154–57.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620935682.

1
Globalization:
Globalization refers to the interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations

among states by cross-border trade of goods and services, technology, and flows of investment,

people, information and exchange of culture, customs among nations.

Albrow defines globalization as,

“Globalization refers to all those processes by which the people of the world are incorporated

into a single world society, global society.”3

According to the World Health Organization,

Globalization can be defined as “the increased interconnectedness and interdependence of people

and countries. It is generally understood to include two inter-related elements: the opening of

international borders to increasingly fast flows of goods, services, finance, people and ideas; and

the changes in institutions and policies at national and international levels that facilitate or

promote such flows.”4

Many authors and organizations tried to give the definition of globalization but there is no

universally accepted definition of it. The social change in any society is related to increasing

connectivity among peoples and countries and it is a result of globalization. The wide-ranging

impacts of globalization are very complex and politically charged. With the advancement and

3
Beerkens, Eric. 2006. “Globalisation: Definitions and Perspectives (Composed by Eric Beerkens,
2006).” http://www.beerkens.info/files/globalisation.pdf.

4
“WHO | Globalization.” 2010. Who.int, December.
https://doi.org//topics/globalization/en/index.html.

2
improvement of technology, globalization benefits the human society as well as it has some

harmful effects on certain groups.

From the understanding of benefits and harms, it can be said that, by globalization, every country

can be benefited rather dominating each other.

Effects of a Pandemic (Covid-19) on Globalization:

Globalization emerged as a process to ensure the interests of the people by rapid connectedness.

Pandemic is found throughout the history of human movement and communication. The bubonic

plague caused by Yersinia pestis, the influenza pandemic of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957, The

Hong Kong flu pandemic are some example of pandemics which caused huge damage to the

human society. But Covid-19 is very different from previous one because of increased

connectedness among nations and for Globalization. Covid-19 affected mobility and travel,

economy and workforce, food and agriculture, healthcare capacity, academic institutions and so

on.

As corona virus spreads by humans and other goods, states stopped their airlines to contain the

virus. On average, about a 30% reduction in stock prices has been observed among major

airlines.5 Sea travel and trade industry is greatly hampered by this pandemic.

5
Shrestha, Nistha, Muhammad Yousaf Shad, Osman Ulvi, Modasser Hossain Khan, Ajlina
Karamehic-Muratovic, Uyen-Sa D.T. Nguyen, Mahdi Baghbanzadeh, et al. 2020. “The Impact of
COVID-19 on Globalization.” One Health 11 (December): 100180.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2020.100180.

3
Los Angeles and Shanghai seaport saw a reduction in their trade 22% and 20% respectively. 6

Every country imposed restrictions on travel for their citizens which cut off informal jobs

automatically. Almost 1.6 billion informal economy workers are significantly impacted by the

lockdown measures.7 Individuals of South and North America were living under travel

restrictions (99.7% and 92.5% respectively).8 Same method is followed by other states. Many

international programs and events are postponed in 2020 due to pandemic. Health-care sector is

also affected by this pandemic. Developed countries like USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, UK and

other western countries tried their best to provide health care support to their citizens but

devastating situation is in developing and under-developed countries. Apart from these,

academic institutions are also suffering. For higher education, generally students of ‘South’ go to

the universities of ‘North’ for higher education, which is a strong mechanism of ‘Globalization

and Culture’, has been stopped. So it is true that pandemic like Covid-19 can stop the process of

globalization for a certain period but globalization can survive during a pandemic by technology

and for the interdependence of the states, which will be clear by the following discussion.

6
“China Exports: China Top Ports Volume Surged 10.7 Percent in February.” 2021. Joc.com. 2021.
https://www.joc.com/port-news/asian-ports/china-top-ports-volume-surged-107-percent-
february_20180322.html.
7
Long, Heather. 2020. “A ‘Misclassification Error’ Made the May Unemployment Rate
Look Better than It Is. Here’s What Happened.” Washington Post. The Washington Post.
June 5, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/05/may-2020-jobs-
report-misclassification-error/.

8
Shrestha, Nistha, Muhammad Yousaf Shad, Osman Ulvi, Modasser Hossain Khan, Ajlina
Karamehic-Muratovic, Uyen-Sa D.T. Nguyen, Mahdi Baghbanzadeh, et al. 2020. “The Impact of
COVID-19 on Globalization.” One Health 11 (December): 100180.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2020.100180.

4
Survival of Globalization:

After all of these circumstances, impacts of Covid-19 in our life described above, the process of

globalization did not stop. In some cases the process accelerated as people cannot contact

physically, people starts to use online platform world-wide to meet their needs. Overall e-

commerce sales in Brazil increased by 40% in the first half of the March 2020 compared to the

same time period of 2019.9 The Chinese online retailer JD.com reported that they have a growth

in online sales by 215% between late January and early February 2020, compared to the same

period in 2019. JD.com, Amazon, Apple, eBay and other online based companies saw a huge
10
increase in their stock price in the time of this pandemic. Trade among the states started after a

little break by maintaining safety because no state is self-sufficient in all sectors. Vaccine

diplomacy has started in the time of pandemic, developed states like USA, UK and China, Russia

worked to invent the vaccine at the same time. Although the research to develop a vaccine was in

a certain state but fund providers for the vaccine were many states and companies. For example,

to develop the Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneka received fund from many countries to continue their

research, US gave more than $1B to AstraZeneka as a major partner in the project. 11 Whenever

Oxford vaccine get approval to vaccinate, the vaccine was not contained within the territory of

the UK. Other states like India, Bangladesh got the vaccine within the short period of time which

was possible for the globalization. Many conventions, meetings and webinars have been

9
Gökçe-Dessemond, E. (2019). Restoring competition in “winner-took-all” digital platform markets.
UNCTAD Research Paper No. 40. https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ser-rp-2019d12_en.pdf.

10
UNCTAD, “Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on trade and development,” 95.
11
McKeever, Vicky. 2020. “AstraZeneca Receives $1 Billion in U.S. Funding for Oxford University
Coronavirus Vaccine.” CNBC. CNBC. May 21, 2020.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/coronavirus-us-gives-astrazenena-1-billion-for-oxford-vaccine.html.

5
happened during the pandemic to solve the problems. The convention of UN general assembly

was occurred in online platform, pandemic could not stop it. 12 Telemedicine and consultancy

over the mobile is increased in 2020. Students can participate in the class of any universities

staying at their home. People experienced a ‘new normal start’ in all other sectors by maintain

the safety measures. Wearing mask, washing hand, touching elbows instead of hand-shaking are

results of globalization of culture. ‘Stay at Home’ practice led people to use the phone and

internet thus people became more concern about the online platform and security of social

platforms. People started to search new platform to communicate and platforms like Zoom, BIP,

Telegram got popular during the pandemic. As more and more people starts to know about the

world and can see and hear anything of the world, the world really became a ‘world village’ for

all and the process of globalization accelerated during this pandemic.

12
“Because of Pandemic, Global Cooperation ‘More Urgent than Ever’, Secretary-General Tells
States Parties to Convention against Transnational Organized Crime | Meetings Coverage and
Press Releases.” 2020. Un.org. 2020. https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/sgsm20331.doc.htm.

6
Conclusion:

In this globalized world, the interdependence among states cannot be ignored and no state can

survive without international trade which is a main mean of globalization, although this term is

related to the some other factors too. In the beginning of the pandemic people thought that the

process of globalization is under threat as governments started to reduce their vulnerability to the

virus by limiting global trade and flows of people. But the flows of goods and people were not

stopped completely, rather after a short break everything was started by maintaining the safety

measures for the demand of the people and for the survival of the states. Undoubtedly, Covid-19

added a new dimension in the history of the pandemic, because the world was not so much

globalized during the previous pandemics. Corona virus spread around the world within a short

period of a time, because of rapid transportation of humans and goods. It is true that pandemic

like Covid-19 imposes some threats to the globalization, one the other hand developing a vaccine

within a year is possible by the global effort of the globalized world. People can survive because

the information related the virus was available to them. From the experience of the Covid-19

pandemic it can be said that Globalization can survive during the time a pandemic.

7
 References

“Because of Pandemic, Global Cooperation ‘More Urgent than Ever’, Secretary-General Tells

States Parties to Convention against Transnational Organized Crime | Meetings

Coverage and Press Releases.” 2020. Un.org. 2020.

https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/sgsm20331.doc.htm.

‌Beerkens, Eric. 2006. “Globalisation: Definitions and Perspectives (Composed by Eric

Beerkens, 2006).” http://www.beerkens.info/files/globalisation.pdf.

“China Exports: China Top Ports Volume Surged 10.7 Percent in February.” 2021. Joc.com.

2021. https://www.joc.com/port-news/asian-ports/china-top-ports-volume-surged-107-

percent-february_20180322.html

Gökçe-Dessemond, E. (2019). Restoring competition in “winner-took-all” digital platform

markets. UNCTAD Research Paper No. 40.

https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ser-rp-2019d12_en.pdf.

Long, Heather. 2020. “A ‘Misclassification Error’ Made the May Unemployment Rate Look

Better than It Is. Here’s What Happened.” Washington Post. The Washington Post. June

5, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/05/may-2020-jobs-report-

misclassification-error/.

McKeever, Vicky. 2020. “AstraZeneca Receives $1 Billion in U.S. Funding for Oxford

University Coronavirus Vaccine.” CNBC. CNBC. May 21, 2020.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/coronavirus-us-gives-astrazenena-1-billion-for-

oxford-vaccine.html.

8
Ritzer, George, ed. 2007. The Blackwell Companion to Globalization. Oxford, UK: Blackwell

Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470691939.

Shrestha, Nistha, Muhammad Yousaf Shad, Osman Ulvi, Modasser Hossain Khan, Ajlina

Karamehic-Muratovic, Uyen-Sa D.T. Nguyen, Mahdi Baghbanzadeh, et al. 2020. “The

Impact of COVID-19 on Globalization.” One Health 11 (December): 100180.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2020.100180

UNCTAD, “Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on trade and development,” 95.

Wang, Fenglong, Sainan Zou, and Yungang Liu. 2020. “Territorial Traps in Controlling the

COVID-19 Pandemic.” Dialogues in Human Geography 10 (2): 154–57.

https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620935682.

“WHO | Globalization.” 2010. Who.int, December.

https://doi.org//topics/globalization/en/index.html.